I would have the stump ground out, then give the bed a definitive shape and add plantings that will thrive in the new light conditions. A good local nursery can help you with the choices.

If it is sunny from noon on. you can plant anything you want aside from oak related stuff. As for the stump, the only issue would be any big roots you’d hit while digging.

tj

^^ this. I would (and have) plant as close as i can dig a good hole. No money here for stump grinding.

I've planted close to three. Kinda built up dirt to get some elevation, when I wanted the same location. Dig a little , chop a little with pickaxe . The stump will eventually rot away .

ron

Thanks to all for sharing your experience. I was hoping to hear that others have done it successfully. Access by a stump grinder would be difficult, but not impossible. Still, grinding it out is not a panacea and I’d prefer to let nature take its course. My hope is that the Carex will continue to surround it.

As an aside, I read somewhere that the roots of a large dead tree will help hold moisture. Is there truth to that or is it an old gardeners’ tale?

I would say that wood can cause the nitrogen to be bound up in the soil, as it decays the wood.

That can be remedied easily enough by adding supplemental fertilizer, if it's noticed the plant is not growing properly.

As far as wood holding moisture, there is a sliver of truth in that. The wood will not necessarily give off any of the moisture it absorbs but the roots of your plants will penetrate the eventually rotting wood and gain moisture and nutrients in that way.

The downside is, about 10 years ago, I had a pine stump (10-12" dia.) that someone left in my new, at the time yard. Being a lot of work to remove, I cut it low and chopped with an axe, so the top was a few inched below grade, piled new soil on top and mowed over it from that time on.

Today I was admiring my new A. lowiana and notice my foot hit a soft spot in the lawn that sunk down several inches under my weight. At first, I thought it might be gopher excavation but on further inspection, it dawned on me it was the same spot I had left that stump!

Not a big deal. It only took half a bag of topsoil mix to completely fill the hole and all the hollow forks where the roots once were.

But yours is Oak and huge so it would take a lot longer to totally disintegrate but I thought it would be an interesting story anyways. :o)

That is an interesting story! I recall a former poster from Cincinnati stating the same about dead stumps tying up nitrogen, but I’ve never run across a study backing it up. I suspect it has been studied and I’ll take your word on it. Bill, how far away from the stump would you recommend I stay to plant a dwarf P. strobus?

That's a good question. BTW: I don't do studies on most of what I do in the yard but use studies sometimes when available. ;-)

I can only give you a theory supported by years of education and experience with fertilizers, soils and growing various kinds of plants both as a hobby and a living.

First. your soil is going to be inundated with wood in the form of roots. So even though you stay away from the larger roots that prevent you from digging, you still have a congested network of roots that are infesting every nook and cranny of that soil, out as far as the root periphery extends.

So, you will be treating this whole area essentially the same when it comes to Nitrogen fixation and deficiency.

The bad news is soil testing won't do much good in this case because nitrogen is so volatile, and the state of the rotting wood will always be in flux for the next several years, even decades.

So, I think your main tool to evaluate plant health will be to monitor the appearance and growth of the plants visually.

The good news is conifers are not big users of Nitrogen but do need some to be healthy with good growth.

Here's my suggestion:

When growing conifers from seed in pots, I found if I gave the seedlings a very minimal amount of N in the form of soluble fertilizer (MG), something like 1/4 tsp. per quart of water (tsp/gal). Barely turned the water a very light tinge of blue. The plants thrived.

Later, when it was time to plant my seedlings outside, I used water only and the results; they failed to grow on and barely survived that season.

What I learned from this and what I now do is; I water the seedling/sapling conifers I plant in the yard with the same weak fertilizer solution I used when starting conifers from seed in pots.

////////

Now in your case, with a high volume of wood in the soil, I would use this same weak solution, so your conifers get at least some added Nitrogen when you water to offset for the rotting wood stealing all your N.

Again, by observation over time, you should be able to determine whether or not to increase the frequency of the added N in the waterings or not. Once the plants are established, they may not need any more help. You be the judge.

[As an aside and is the result of soil tests that showed my soil was severely deficient in certain nutrients, I now add Magnesium and Sulphur in the form of magnesium sulphate in the fertilizer mix (2 tsp/gal). Those two nutrients made the biggest difference in plant health when I added them to the fertilizer mix, on both conifer and broad leaf plants. btw: MG sold in the states does not contain magnesium]

You might not need the magnesium sulphate like I do, but the weak solution of fertilizer would be my go-to if I thought my new conifers weren't performing up to par in that environment.

HTH

I'm not nearly as scientific, or I suppose I don't think about these things (which is surprising for me, who overthinks everything lol) but I plant very close to my oak trees. Like, plants right up against the trunks, touching them.

I had a beautiful triple-trunk oak that we lost, after trying for a few years to save it. It was one of the reasons I bought my house, that's how much I loved it. When we had them take it down, I couldn't bear to lose it completely, so I had them leave the stump at about 6 feet tall (turns out that saved me about $1000 too!)

That was about 6 years ago, and I have expanded the bed that was around this tree. Again, I am not the kind to pay very close attention to soil makeup or nutrients (maybe I'd have a better garden if I did lol!) but I haven't noticed any obvious detriments in this garden. Everything does fairly well - who know, maybe they'd do better if the stump was gone. I don't know. And I don't have conifers planted there so perhaps that is a different situation.

I guess all this is to say that in my (perhaps rather unobservant) experience, my garden around my stump does well (other than my shade plants being exposed to much more sun suddenly, but I'm working on that!)

Below are a few photos of my beloved stump lol. Unfortunately two of them are with branches growing out of it that I hadn't cut back yet so it's not very attractive lol. FYI, this bed has been extended about 4 feet further out (and yes I had to dig out some hefty roots to do so!) but again things are doing quite well here. I don't have a more current photo (these are all a few years old).

Good luck!

:)

Dee

P.S. Oh, I did have a few oak stumps ground down a long time ago, when we had to take down a couple trees. I left the wood chips where the trees were, did a bit of lasagna gardening, and made it into a bed. I can't see much difference in performance of plants in that bed than in this bed with the stump. Again, remember this is the observation of an unobservant gardener lol!

maackia, since you have a green thumb for conifers, I'd recommend that. I've always heard (and seen pics) that weeping eastern hemlocks end up being rather small, shade tolerant and handsome, tho quite slow (as you might desire).

Love the skunk!

You're an old hand at this maackia, you'll figure it out. :-)

So many variables and different types of plants.

My soil is so nutrient deficient, not to mention all the roots left by the tornado 14 years ago.

The finer roots will be gone in a year or two but I'm still hitting chunks of wood when I dig here.

That's an enticing collection of plants you have there and of course I was mainly referring to the relationship of conifers and N. :^)