That's a lot of work to be doing in someone else's yard.Here's hoping the stumps die a quick death and you get great neighbors. I'd guess looking at David's tookiss is better than the front. just saying.

Coffeemom - hysterical! You nailed it with the "just sayin'"!

I know. Crazy to go work on your neighbor's yard. I looked at it as if we were working on a park next to us. Like helping clean up the beach or helping the neighbors clear a vacant lot to become a park. Of course, we'll never get to enjoy this "park" but we won't have to deal with the peppers. I hope. They were a huge hassle for us - making babies everywhere and crowding or shading several of our plants. And no one else was going to do it.
We're good in the front, probably forever. And the back one won't bother us nearly as much for a couple years at least.
We actually tried to think of it as an opportunity to solve a problem before the new neighbors move in, whenever that happens. Wouldn't it be a shame if we decided to forgo this opportunity and then the new neighbors moved in and decided they love their blasted pepper trees? We also pulled a huge pile of Virginia Creeper and cleaned up the vines on their Royal Palm so hopefully it will get a little healthier and wont' fall on our house. I'm honestly considering fertilizing it. Insane, when I hardly fertilize my own yard, but it looks so anemic and we really don't want it to be unhealthy and cut our house in half (which it would do if it fell.)
As for the backside of David, yes, we've contemplated how much worse it would be if we awoke to a full frontal view.
I'd be happiest with David behind a bush, actually. Or in the garbage pile with the peppers. He's a bit tacky, honestly.

You never did answer my question about the diameter of the trunk. I was trying to figure out if, with the right knowledge, you might be able to dig it out, but given your concern about topping it into another structure it was probably too big....

Tom

There is a type of old rose called china roses that usually have a peppery smell to the plant. They are resistant to nematodes unless highly hybridized. Since plants likely developed the pepper molecule for something other than our pleasure, probably insect and/or disease resistance, my thought is- Would Brazillian Pepper used as garden mulch give protection against nematodes? Possible problem would be baby Pepper trees would have to be weeded, but gardens are usually weeded anyway. Food for thought.

Sure that poison works - IMPE, Brazilian Peppers will regrow like C-R-A-Z-Y & have roots down to Hades.

Also mind the sap - we had some bad reactions to it, when we were kids, climbing our neighbor's tree.

Sounds like you did good deed....

Sorry for the delay Tom.
We were cutting trees with stumps from one-inch to four- or five-inch. We cut large branches off of a tree that has a trunk that's kind of uneven, so it doesn't really have a normal diameter, but is easily a foot across. We couldn't take it out, for fear of the neighbor's guest house. and we weren't comfortable poisoning it for the same reason.
The one in front that doesn't threaten anything was poisoned.
And it's rained a lot here, meaning, I fear, that the poison just washed into the ground-water and out to the Bay, instead of killing the tree. It's a poison that is at its most useful on a new cut - so we painted quickly before the sap could seal that up.
It's also a poison that is really bad in ground water. So I'm not sure that we did a good thing - no matter how good the intentions.
We're going to use the rest of it on cherry stumps, hoping for a dry weekend soon (not this one!) to drill the cherry stumps.
Grrr. I'm a little bit frustrated that I gave in and bought poison and the unseasonably early rains may have thwarted my efforts to keep that poison out of the groundwater and Bay.

And Cathy, one of the reasons why it's prohibited for landscapers to give me mulch chipped up from stuff they cut is because of Brazilian Peppers and Melaleuca. The danger with chipped mulch is seeds in it that will spread the bad stuff, so in Miami-Dade, landscapers can't even go and cut down my neighbor's oak tree and chip it and give the chips to me. They can only chip on site, so the bad stuff - if there is any - stays put.
Makes me sad, because I could totally use free mulch, but I understand the reasoning. We put the pepper branches out for bulk pick-up. I'm not even willing to compost that stuff.

Hi Susannah,

A tree one foot in diameter could be taken out by the method I posted in the link above. My guess is that it would take 2-3 hours to dig up, then you'd need to wash the soil off the base, let it dry and then cut it up with a chainsaw, but you'd be rid of the tree for sure. Technically not difficult to do but does involve a little heavy manual labor and you would need an axe that you will dull in the soil.

Tom

Thanks Tom. That's an interesting, and much better thought-out idea than any we have come up with. I'm afraid the trees we can take out are too close to our house, and to a five foot concrete planter attached to our house, to get at the roots that way. (really narrow lot lines here.)

We're going to try more poison drilled into the stumps tomorrow, and we're going to girdle a tree we couldn't get down, but won't threaten anything we care about when it comes down. IFAS recommends this poison, with girdling, for pepper trees.

We're also going to drill some cherry stumps and hope the poison wipes them out.

Meant to do it today, but gosh it's hot! I'm sure it will be tomorrow too... but this heat makes putting off till tomorrow what I could do today so easy.