Mulberry..best way to remove it cut it off as close to the ground as you can, drill 1 inch holes in stump pack the holes with epsom salt cover with a trap tightly with some rope/bungee cords it will slowly decay..grinding or pulling it out could break your water line

Baloney.

Cut it off as close to the ground as possible and apply an appropriate herbicide, labeled for stump or girdle/frill application, to the cambium layer and exposed bark at the root flare.

What Lucky said (especially the first paragraph, LOL).

The fruit is dark purple. It will look lovely on your white fence and driveway.

Also attracts birds which then poop purple all over everything. Okay in an orchard or similar setting, not so good around pavement, structures and vehicles. And white mulberry is weedy in some areas, hence the one coming up right next to your fence.

if a bird planted..a pre fertilized seed .. as it sat on the fence.. it is clearly a free seeding weed tree ..

i have a couple on 5 acres ... and that is a couple too many ..

they didnt mention the purple stains on the house siding.. windows ... and car.. not to mention the purple stains on the carpeting.. if you should walk on one.. on the way to the house ...

it is NOT a tree for a tiny suburban lot ...

what in the word were you digging with a pick axe.. if the water line is there ... yikes ... btw.. water lines are sealed ... its sewer lines that are the potential problem line .... if they are the old fashioned clay tile and oakum .... if your water line has holes in it.. you would have a geyser there ...

cut flush.. and stump killer..

ken

Fruit Garden, apparently you have very little experience with Mulberry. Read and learn.

Mike

As said before, I would definitely remove it. I didn't listen before and now I have a tree in my yard that's not fun to deal with

Pretty big, vase-shaped white mulberry in Hager Park, Hagerstown, MD:

http://www.mdbigtrees.com/tree_detail.aspx?tree=TR20150122192726080

You never want to spray herbicides to remove a tree around a water line!

Why?

I think it's perfectly fine. A waterline is under pressure. Even if it did leak, there would be no contamination.

Water lines are most steel or cast iron. Spraying in type of chemical around them could soap in herbicides stay in place for many years before being washed away.

I don't understand.

Thanks for all the help! I'll do some research on how to get rid of it.

Most chemicals we use are oil based. When oil comes in contact with steel it soaks in.

Epsom salt works great on removing stumps. None toxic but it is a slows process

Water lines from street mains to the house made of steel or cast iron? Never seen it or heard of it. Usually copper or if relatively recent, PVC or Pex. I seriously doubt if steel or cast iron pipes would be permitted by any water company or plumbing code.

BCS... you must be dabbling in alchemy, not chemistry. Oils and oil-based compounds do not 'soak in' to steel or iron. Additionally, the targeted basal or frill application of an appropriate herbicide (not epsom salts packed into a hole drilled in the non-living heartwood) poses virtually no environmental hazard, and certainly is more likely to kill this persistent woody 'weed'.

I'm a mulberry enthusiast... but not so enthusiastic about a random M.alba seedling growing in an undesirable location.

There is no research done of this subject. I grow up in a large farming town in Indiana crop fields far as you could see. Before i was born ground water was determined too toxic to drink from herbicide run off. The town was granted money from the government to build a closed water treatment plant.

All outside water was trucked in held in a storage tank for 72 hours while be tested.

when the growing season was at full swing without notice water would be shut off for two days for treatment for herbicides. Main water lines was pex the return line was steel. No news was released how the herbicides was entering the system when we moved out of town they was replacing all return lines.

So to use herbicides to remove a stump on a water line even if it is pvc or pex we have no idea if it can leak into the line. As the herbicides eat away the trunk it will be a holding ground for the herbicides to stay around the pipe longer.