one foot from the house???

cut it at ground level ... apply roundup or stump killer to the edge of the cut ...

and go buy a nice 3 footer for $24 ... preferably a Picea pungens 'Hoopsi' .. for perhaps a bit more ...

i would give a professional no better than a 50% success rate..

plus extreme heavy labor ...

plus the fact that you have no ability to dig against the house ...

i just dont see any upside to the whole project ..

ken

here is my hoopsii
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Anawim, I just did something similar with a bush of about the same size.

Before you procede look up the cose of replacement and also realize for best success you will be waiting until fall.

My bush experience involved a broken shovel, two wratchet straps, a pick up, a sore back, my mower and its trailer and some 2x4's.

Keep in mind I did it, was the largest thing in the yard my wife picked out.

OMG, and now I am remembering extracting a six foor white ash from the edge of the gravel parking area off the drive.

Good luck.

there is a big difference between what CAN be done.. and what SHOULD be done ...

my back and my labor .. are worth more than $25 dollars per hour.. on a 4 to 8 hour project ...

ken

Been there done that... cut it down. We planted an 8' crabapple a couple years ago during spring. By fall we had to move this because we added a 3rd garage onto our house. We dug around it, pulled it out of the ground. It was a B&B tree... the soil pretty much fell apart and we were left with a bare root tree. We replanted, now about a year and a half later it looks great as if nothing happened. However, this was a special $80 tree... it took me and my dad about 4 hours to dig and replant. That's 8 hours back breaking labor for an $80 tree. I can imagine a spruce would be much harder since it hugs the ground, has sharp needles, and is probably much more established than mine was.

Chainsaw fixes the problem in seconds.

Here's the deal...an eight foot P. pungens is gonna need a root ball of.30"? or measure diameter of trunk in inches and multiply by ten.

if trunk is one foot from drive and house...can you dig such a rootball in that space?

where do you get a 3'. hoopsii for 24$� and do they ship?

This thing will poke, pierce, and scratc every part of you skin that touches it while you are tugging and trying to wiggle this big tree and rootball around. New tree time!

John

jon got what i forgot..

pungens are just about the meanest conifers there are ... you will look and feel like you got into a fight with poison ivy ...

$24???

well i buy one footers .. planting in 5 minutes.. move on with life ... lol ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: opps.. $16 ... but shipping need be added ...