How To Get Rid of Unwanted Trees

Last summer I discovered that I had sizable buckthorn trunks hiding right smack dab in the middle of two large mature Renaissance spireas on my east hill. I did not see them until they grew tall enough to stick out above the shrubs. They were much too large to dig out, plus any attempt to do so would have damaged the roots of the spireas. Also, I would have had a difficult time getting to them since these shrubs are on a steep hill. I had learned a hard lesson several years ago when I cut down another such tree next to a very nice mountain ash and applied brush/stump killer to it. Both trees died. I didn't want to lose my spireas, so there was no way I would try that again.

I was talking with some local gardening friends last summer and we were commiserating about the gosh darned rabbits in the neighborhood. They mentioned that over the previous winter the rabbits had killed some trees and shrubs in their yard by girdling them.

Hmmmm....an idea hatched in my head. I call this a "chicken soup" idea -- might or might not work, but couldn't hurt. Last fall I reached into the shrubs with a long-handled tree pruner and girdled the buckthorn trunks. Sure enough, so far this spring there are no buds or leaves on those trunks but the spireas are budding out just fine. Once I am sure the buckthorns are no longer growing, I will cut them down so they are not visible but will mark them and leave enough trunk to girdle again just to make sure they don't resprout. Eventually I should be able to just pull the dead trunks out without disturbing the spireas. This seemed to me to be quite an easy solution to a thorny problem!