And since it is considered to be an invasive species across much of the US, I'd be inclined to remove and replace with something else.

Yea, we're in Canada but same issue of invasiveness is being recognized now here. It was a popularly recommended tree in 2011!

watch out.. some guy is stalking it .. lol ...

its in front of a rather good looking house ... get rid of it .. asap ...

if it were out back on my 5 acres.. and i only had to look at it once a year.. i might play around with it .. not here ...

you can do so much better.. with a new plant..

ken

I wouldn't have something that looked that awful in my front yard for five minutes!

Haha thanks, this is the reality check I needed. Called the stump removal guy!

Isn't every Canadian issued a chainsaw and a flannel shirt at birth? Just put on the shirt, crank up the saw and cut it off at ground level. Voila, firewood for next winter. :-D

have them remove all grindings ... and refill the hole with fresh soil ...

the gas to firewood ratio is probably a negative.. lol ...

this is suburban canada ... not the chainsaw canada ... lol .. different breed ...

ken

It is a Russian olive. I don't know how rapidly they grow in Canada but in the Carolina, they do quite well.

We had one a couple of houses a go. We rented the house for about 6 years, and when the renters moved out, the Russian Olive had "Branches" that ran out 20' from the plant. I cut it back until it was a nice bush about 4' in diameter. When we sold the house several years later it was doing well.

If you really like he tree, I would cut the tall leader back to the the bunch of limbs that have leaves. I would then trim back the ones in that lower bunch of leaves.

With trimming you should be able to maintain it as a weeping bush.