Scavenging downed timber - is it ok where you live?

[clemsonfor]

That "death spray" should be avoided if possible. The electric company felled a mulberry under their transmission line in my backyard and asked if they could paint the stump with herbicide to prevent regrowth. I foolishly agreed. The next year, one yew 6ft away and one viburnum 8ft away were dead. Another yew 10ft away is still stunted like a bonsai after 5 years. It is nasty stuff, with a big kill radius.

Depends on what they use. It has to be soil active to do anything other than the tree it was put on. The only other thing is that they had root grafted each other, but that seldom happens between species? What probably happened was they painted that stump and at a later time foliar sprayed the ROW and drift hit your trees?

I have a herbicide license and know whats out there. There really is nothing that will act like this besides velpar, and that would not be used to "paint" stumps? Garlon is usually used or tordon for something like this those are both trade names but even painted there is about ZERO percent chance that it kills adjacent trees unless they are grafted by roots.