How to kill volunteer trees near a house without herbicides
Cutting the tree down to ground level and covering it with a tarp starves the stump of sunlight and prevents new growth without the cost of professional removal. Without these steps, overgrown saplings will continue to press against exterior walls and cross property lines.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Digging out the central root ball manually
- 2Cutting them back repeatedly over time
- 3Hiring an arborist or professional removal service
- 4Using a tarp to cover the cut stumps until the next season
- 5Cutting some limbs at the base to open up the canopy
- 6Removing entire branches at the trunk rather than trimming the ends
- 7Talking to the homeowner about completely removing the plant
- 8Ripping the trees out and replacing them with different plants
- 9Watching instructional videos on YouTube before attempting to trim them
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Can somebody identify this extremely overgrown shrub and tell me how short I can cut it?”source ↗
“Can I lop the tops of these off just below the gutter line? Or should I start more conservatively since I've ignored them for 10 years... I'd say they are about 15ft tall and I'd like to take 3-4 feet off.”source ↗
“It isn’t blocking a window, but it’s so overgrown that it’s crossed the property line.”source ↗
“The branches are touching the house as well.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 8Why do crape myrtles look so ugly after severe pruning?
- 6Can you cut overgrown shrubs below the window line without killing them?
- 2How to fill deep holes in the yard from removed structures
- 2How to get rid of a bunch of old landscaping rock