Removing plants before you start your new landscape project may seem like a big task. If you have large over-grown shrubs in your landscape that need replacing, you will need to remove them first before you can install new plant material. There are quite a few methods that can assist you in removing plants. I will take you through a run down of the easiest ways of removing plants from your landscape. First off, make sure you locate all utilities prior to doing any plant removal.
Removing plants of various sizes.
Lets start out with small shrubs. Small shrubs are those usually under three feet in size. These are obviously the easiest to remove because of their small size. The first thing to do is expose the base of the plant. This can be done by trimming back some of the branches. Make sure to not trim the bush all the way to the ground. If you do this, you will lose your ability to have leverage on the plant when you try to dig it up. Start with digging a perimeter around the plant, roughly 6 inches away from the base of the plant. Once you have done this all the way around the plant, grab the remaining branches and rock the plant back and forth in the hole and side to side. Keep doing this until you break enough roots free so that you can remove the plant. If you run into large roots you may have to use an ax to cut some of roots.
Removing plants that are medium or large in size can be done by first exposing the main trunk of the plant. Some plants will have one or two main trunks such as some evergreens varieties. Other plants like lilac will have multiple trunk chutes. Removing plants like these, will require cutting away all of the foliage. Leave at least a couple of feet of the main trunks as a stump. Start digging by hand around the base of the shrub. Usually you will only need to remove about 8″ or 12″ of soil around the plant. Next you can take an ax and chop around the perimeter of the shrub to break the roots free from the earth. Once the shrub has some movement in it, push it towards one side and continue to chop the roots on the underside. Continue this process by moving the stump around the hole until you have removed the roots. If you have a shallow rooted shrub, this method works pretty well. If you have a large trunk on your shrub, it may be necessary to back a truck up to the hole and attach a chain to the truck and shrub. Removing plants by this method will require multiple people. You should be able to pull the shrub out if you have removed enough of the roots. Removing plants can also be done with a skid loader if you have this tool at your disposal. The same process would apply to using a skid loader as if you were using a truck. If the area is accessible, you can remove shrubs by grinding the stumps with a stump grinder.
