Stump Grinding for Strathfieldsaye Yards and Paddocks

Stump grinding in Strathfieldsaye is shaped by the ground more than anything else, so that is where we start. What is under the stump, what is around it and how the machine gets to it decide the depth, the time and the price.

Local conditions: what is under a Strathfieldsaye stump

The timber. Grey box, yellow box, red ironbark and yellow gum were here before the houses, and they are among the densest timbers in the country. Their heartwood resists decay so well that a stump sits for decades looking much as it did the day it was cut. They do not sucker like an elm, but a live yellow gum or box stump pushes epicormic shoots for a season or two, so a living stump is better ground than left.

The soil. Strathfieldsaye drains to Sheepwash Creek from ridges with soils that do not let water through easily. On the stony rises where red ironbark grows the ground is gravel and quartz, which blunts grinder teeth, so we go slower there and check the cutters. On the flats and in the gullies where grey box and yellow box grow the digging is softer, but the roots run wide and shallow, and those surface roots, not the stump, are what lift lawns and driveway edges.

What is around it. On acreage: dams, troughs, poly lines from tanks and bores, septic trenches, irrigation, the electric fence feed. In the estates: gas, NBN, stormwater and retaining walls close to the boundary. Show us what you know of; we check the front boundary through Dial Before You Dig and hand-dig where anything is doubtful.

Getting there. Long gravel drives off Strathfieldsaye Road or Emu Creek Road are no trouble. Side gates on the seven-hundred-square-metre estate blocks decide which machine comes, and we lay ply over paving and turf on the way through.

Grind depths and what the ground can do afterwards

Big ironbark and box stumps, seven hundred millimetres across or more, take the longest at any depth because of the sheer volume of hard wood. A knee-high stump left by a builder is cut close to the ground with a saw first so the grinder is not wasting time above grade.

A typical stump job in Strathfieldsaye

A builder has cleared three grey box on a new block in a Tannery Fields-style estate and left the stumps knee high, one of them right on the line where the owner wants a fence. We come through the side gate, cut the stumps to ground level, grind each to about two hundred and fifty millimetres below grade, and chase the surface roots along the fence line so the post holes are clear. The grindings are raked into a heap for the garden beds, the holes are backfilled with soil, and the yard is ready for turf by lunchtime. On the acreage side of the suburb the same morning might be spent along an old fence line on Tannery Lane, taking a dozen paddock stumps down to mowing height.

Grindings, roots and replanting

A stump produces two to three times its own volume in grindings, because the chip is mixed with soil and fluffed up. It makes a good rough mulch and a poor backfill under lawn, because it sinks as it rots and draws nitrogen while it does. Roots beyond the ground area decay over years, harmless in a paddock and worth knowing about if you plan to trench through. For a new tree where the old one stood, grind deep, remove the grindings, backfill with soil, and plant to one side. If the tree is still standing, start with tree removal in Strathfieldsaye and we quote the grind as part of it; a hedge ripped out and left as a row of stubs is grinder work too, and our hedge trimming in Strathfieldsaye page explains when a hedge is past saving.

The same machine and crew handle stump grinding in Junortoun across the northern boundary, stump grinding at Axedale near home, and stump grinding in Bendigo itself. The main stump grinding service page covers the machinery, and the Strathfieldsaye suburb page covers the rest of what we do here.

Common questions from Strathfieldsaye owners