Care for the Eldertree

Last year we cut back some very overgrown elders, leaving a row of stumps. In the last 8 months they'd sprouted back all over the place and we had been set a challenge to try to get them up by their roots!

First of all we had to lop everything back and once we'd done that, we could see the enormity of the task ahead. Nobody was deterred though and people started digging trenches around the stumps to attempt to get them up.

Newbie Kate threw herself into it and remained optimistic even when her and Lindsay appeared to hit a concrete floor a few feet beneath the surface.

We tried a strategy of mattocking the actual stumps but - despite being really fun - it was not a very effective strategy so that was soon canned. John and Vicky were still going strong with their stump but the rest of us focused on sawing the trees as low as possible.

As John and Vicky got closer to victory, Kate, Leanne and Freya all came to help lever the roots from the ground and everyone cheered as one giant stump was extracted!

All that was left was for 'Lumberjack Kate' to finish her almighty sawing challenge that she's set herself: basically sawing through a huge stump with a slightly-too-small saw.