Half-barrels with flowers might look nice, but if people kept reversing into the trees, won't they also keep reversing into the barrels?? Probably simplest to hire a stump grinder and remove them altogether (the stumps, not the people reversing, however attractive the latter might be!).

Resin

Much though I would like to say to plant things around them, whether in pots or not, I think Resin is right - if people backed into the trees, then they will back into anything in the same place, especially if lower to the ground. I would either hire the stump-grinder, or else put wood chips around the area and expand your parking surfaces. With people having trouble reversing and turning, it sounds like you NEED more room in that spot.

If the rest of your drive is gravel or paved, then you might want to do the stump grinding first, and make it match. But if the disparity in surfacing doesn't bother you or your spouse/family, then it seems to me to be a good idea to put down a thick layer of wood-chips, and wait for them to break down and rot, along with the stumps - over the next few years. Once the stumps are mostly gone, you can take another look at the situation and decide what you now/then want to do.

If you want SOMETHING there, putting a couple of large pots along the far perimeter, away from wayward cars, might be helpful in defining the area. Depending on conditions of light and shade - AND the distance from a convenient source of water - planting smallish shrubs (Knockout Roses?) or grasses might be better than annuals, which do take quite a bit of water when growing in pots. And if it IS pretty sunny, using solar path lights around the edges might be nice too.

Aw I love hickories. Good quality wood...did you sell it for $$$$? I'd recommend a stump grinder as well. You can rent one for the day or something from a hardware store.

I went on a garden tour of a local garden writer and she had her stumps cut off a couple of feet high and all had planters on top. If the stump was big, she had a washtub on top. It really added color and height to the garden. Pots of annuals!

The Hickories were tall and straight - terrific wood as you suggest jqpublic and in theory worth big bucks - I did try to sell them as a matter of fact but there wasnt enough wood to warrant a mill sending a truck for a 100 mile trip.....Its all about location.

And I think a single barrel of flowers on the stump the furthest away from the driveway might be the answer. Stump grinding around here would be a $400 item.

I had anticipated moving the driveway over the area where the stumps were (as the original driveway was clearly directed around them and thereby reduced the size of the front lawn) but a driveway expert said that even if I ground the stunps out and moved the driveway a sinkhole would develop where the trees had been.

Save your money for a few months and then bite the bullet on the stummp grinding. You'll be glad you did.

If you do go with grinding out the stump in a couple of months (or next year), and if you mulch the area for a few years, you can "top up" the sinkhole as the roots rot, and keep it level. Paving it might be problematic, but mulch is easy enough to level, and will hasten the rotting as well.

I forgot that Hickories tend to pop up suckers all over the place. Maybe one will pop up further away from the driveway and you'll be able to keep it?

hey chet ...

its a zen thing ... stumps are the function of any forest.. sometimes even more interesting than the rest ...

work it into your head.. that they are beautiful in and of themselves .. and you will be a long way toward seeing them for their own beauty ... think of them as an asset.. rather than a liability ....

especially in a year or two.. when they start sprouting mushrooms .. a whole nother plant for your garden.. i know its a fungus ...

no one will notice them.. in a well tended garden ... and if they do.. tell them it is garden art ....

to speed breakdown.. keep them damp .... and add some high nitro fert ... but i wouldn't even waste the money on that ... a large well watered pot on top will add in keeping it damp ...

ken

Final result: A neighbor had a tree cut down and destumped - so I asked the tree guy to use the destumoing machine while he was on the street - and I got it done pretty cheap. I asked him to go deeper than usual as I inteded to put a driveway over that area. He went down about 6 inches.

I now have a ton of woodchips......