Wait Wait, before you head to the comment section (like you always do), this is not anything political. However, I’m sure Cara would love to make a corollary. This is the complement to the "popular" blog article “Tree Planting Tips and Ginkgo Facts”. While we still love the Ginkgo and it is settling in quite nicely. There is a bush in front of our house that Cara hates. After some discussion I finally agreed that we could get rid of it and replace it with something nicer.
The first thing we did was hose the whole think down with roundup, and don’t get chincy. Sure enough a week later it was dead as a doornail. I gave it an extra week just to make sure it was dead all the way down to the roots.
Then I wrapped the base with a tie down strap and hooked it up to the hitch on Old Blue (the Saturn). While Old Blue held some tension on the bush I cut roots around the perimeter with a shovel. I hopped in and gave it some gas, and pop went the tie-down. Fortunately, in typical Gutzmer fashion I happened to have a professional 4” tie-down left in the garage.
The “trucker grade” strap did the job and drug the bush out into the driveway, along with most of the rocks. After it was out I wrapped up the top part with the broken strap and took a chain saw to the base. Now we have a delightful fall decoration for the front of the house, and in the spring we can plant a new box hedge.
Note: The optimal means for pulling plants out of the ground with a vehicle is to put a wheel hub from a discarded tire in front of the plant and to put the strap or chain over that so that you are pulling up instead of sideways. I did not have any old wheels laying around.
5 comments:
Good riddance, I say. I hated that bush as well. Fortunately for you, this one didn't cost you $5,000,000,000,000.
Apparenly some enterprising fellow has seen my blog and decided to make up T-shirts.
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/item/sayonara-bush/282357113
More power to you.
At first I thought that was police "do not cross" tape placed there as a joke (as it surely wouldn't support that kind of force). I guess that is actually the tie down strap.
GLad you were successful. If you ever need some extra man power, I think I know where you can find some.
you could put an obama sign in the hole for the time being.
so are you going to try the same thing with the red bushes on the south side of the house? those were the bane of our existence. you could clear them out and put in all blueberry bushes there.
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