Heh, I took down the silver maple in my back yard-after living with it for 30+ years-it is much older than that-and at the time of this removal, it was the largest tree of its species in this city. Mine was right around 90 ft. tall and had a crown spread of easily 70 ft. We're talking a big tree.

I cut the stub high-right around chest-height, and then over time, slowly hollowed out the interior, using chisels, ax, chainsaw, whatever I had at my disposal. Since then, I've had exceptional enjoyment planting annual flowers in it. Since that is one of the things I do for a living, I have some pretty good ideas. Each of the three years since we took it down have been glorious displays, billowing up and out, over the sides. Good rich, compost-enhanced soil, plenty of water and fertility, to say it's gone well would be an understatement. In the process, keeping things moist and nutrient-rich, fungi have rapidly colonized the remainder of this stump. Nearly all of the bark has fallen off, numerous shelf fungi grow on it, and just in general, it's become the perfect emblem of how in nature, life comes from death.

I think that, if getting the stump to break down is your goal, you will get there alright. If, on the other hand, you're in a hurry for this to happen, by all means, if there is access, have the stump ground out. Doing so will speed up the process considerably.

+oM

Remove them stump grindings and fill in with cheap top soil. I bet it is a couple years before the grass is right but it'll be green enough with repeated seed applications.

We took down a mid-sized red maple two seasons ago, and though we had the stump ground several inches below soil level and back-filled with good topsoil, we have found that the grass has been a bit slow and uneven to establish, possibly because as the remains of tree that is left below ground rot, the ground is settling unevenly. We've been filling in slowly with light layers of compost and soil and that is seeming to help, but it won't look like the rest of the lawn for another season at least.

NH, it's that and the fact that there's still considerable wood in the ground there. The big guys call it "nitrogen drag", the effect of decay organisms sequestering much of the available N to do their thing. Then of course, these organisms die and all that N is returned back into the systems....or better put, it never really was gone, just not available to plants for a while.

It's relatively easy to mitigate this chlorosis (yellowing) of your grass with N fertilizer. the settling is also going to continue for a while as this decomposition takes place.

+oM

Who is desert gardens inc? I am a bit of a hack but do some web some web design. tell em to skip the mobil version. Everyone has decent enough phones anymore and it doesn't scroll well.

I had no idea that nitrogen could speed up the decaying process! My husband and I are looking to get a similarly-sized tree removed from our front yard, but I don't think we considered using any chemicals to speed up the process. We're still looking for a tree removal company at the moment, but when they're done I'm pretty sure we're going to just fill the hole with soil. Hopefully everything works out for both of us! http://www.djstree.com/Tree_Removal_Stump_Grinding_Colchester_VT.html

or you could keep part of the trunk and plant a vine on it.....just wanted to throw that out there

I turned my very large stump into a flower planter. It has worked extremely well. Glad I decided to cut the stub so high.

+oM

I turned one stump into a rock garden surrounded by hardy Geranium.
Returning a ground out stump back to lawn is a bad idea in my book. It can be done, but usually not worth the time and effort.
Is there anyway you can incorporate the stump area into a bed? Settling wouldn't be such an issue then.
Mike