Grind the stump before you plant the new lawn

Sod over chips sinks. The lawn looks wrong within a month.

A new lawn over an old stump looks fine on Saturday and wrong by the next month. The stump keeps sprouting or rotting, the chips settle, and you get a dip, a dry spot, or a pile of mushrooms in the middle of the sod.

Haul the chips. Fill with soil. Let it settle before anyone lays turf.

Grind, then wait to plant

Stump grinding cuts the stump below grade. It does not vanish the roots out to the dripline, and it does not leave a hole full of soil. You get chips. Those chips are woody. If you rake them level and roll sod over them, they break down and the lawn sinks. They also steal nitrogen while they rot, so that circle stays yellow.

What works: grind deep enough for the use you actually want (lawn, not a patio footing — say so when you book). Haul the chips off or use them as mulch somewhere else, not as the fill under sod. Bring in soil to refill the hole. Water it and let it settle before the landscaper lays turf. If the grind was yesterday, do not sod tomorrow.

Sprouts from roots left in the ground can still show up, especially on privet, elm, and some ornamentals. A grind stops the stump. It is not a promise that every root gave up.

Grinding is digging. Locate the lines before the crew and before the landscaper.

Call 811 before we grind and before you dig

Utilities do not care that the stump “has always been there.” Marking is required before digging, and grinding is digging. Have utilities located before the crew arrives, and again before you or your landscaper excavate that hole to reset irrigation. A new rotor head through a line is a worse delay than waiting on the ticket.

Tell us about irrigation, invisible dog fence, and shallow lighting. We can miss a head that was buried in the flare.

Remove, grind, refill, then irrigation and sod.

If the tree is still standing

Do not design the lawn around a removal you have not scheduled. Order is: decide keep or remove, get the tree down, grind, refill with soil, then irrigation and sod. Planting a replacement tree in that same hole only works after the chips are gone and the soil is real soil, not a wood sponge.

Street trees and some protected trees need a city yes before removal. We flag when a permit may apply — you confirm with the city. We do not pull permits for you unless that is scoped in writing. A landscaper’s start date does not replace that.

Send photos of the stump, the yard access, and where the new lawn will go. Start Easy Estimate or call 408-439-6975.