Popping out bushes?

[old and tired]

I've never seen anyone put a hoe on a dozer. Pretty slick!!

It was a wee bit bigger than the dozer should have had. 1199A Long backhoe...

 

[Bansil]

How is that little dozer been for you? How old is that model?

Found a photo of removing the "massive" boxwood stumps... and right before the bolts stripped out of the back of the Nortac dozer!

 

[old and tired]

About 2005-ish... helped with road building and paths into the woods. Mainly light duty work but work, none the less. Right now it needs a steering clutch on the right side...

It's a friends' dozer but I was offered it, for free - just need to fix the right side steering clutch (I declined the offer!)

 

[sd455dan]

We had a 1960's CASE Terratrac 750? with a hoe and a clamshell bucket. It was a very handy machine.



Good Luck to the OP on the Boxwood removal, tight spaces complicate things for sure.

 

[Williy]

If you can get a hose you can loosen up the dirt
around the trunk with the pressure should be able
to get low by the roots??? dynamite??

willy

 

[danyjames_]

MIL has about a dozen (maybe a little more) bushes that were injured by severe cold last winter and then finished off by more severe cold this winter. Now that it’s spring she wants me to help her pull them up so she can replace them. These are mostly your typical boxwood type residential bushes that you commonly see in front of people’s houses in the eastern part of the country. My experience with them is that the smaller/younger ones aren’t too much of a fight to pull up, but established ones can have extensive root systems. So, I plan to haul my compact tractor to her house in a couple of weeks to hopefully make the job easier.

Speed Test​

What would you guys do? Use the 3-point hitch to pop them up out of the ground, or use the loader with a chain on the bolt on hooks that I added to the bucket to pull them up? I’m considering just using the 3-point because then I’ll have more leverage and less likely to get the tractor tipsy. Also, no strain on the front axle. On the other hand, the 3-point has limited range of motion and it’s harder to cinch the chain up tight and then have the range to pull the bush totally free. Hmmm….

A farmer jack (high lift jack) would probably do the job without damaging the lawn, depending on the size that would be my go too.

 

[Little Red Tractor]

A friend did the job the "hard" way. He cut all around the base of the shrubs with a recipricating saw and a stout blade, then yanked them out with his truck. It worked for him.

 

[WinterDeere]

I've pulled several boxwoods, and the method I've found that works well is:

1. Trim up from bottom to make some clear working space under them. This can be done in about 30 seconds with a gas trimmer, you're not trying to make it pretty.
2. Choker chain around the bush to chain hook on tractor bucket.
3. Lift. If it's young, it'll come out easy. If it's mature, this will just provide some pressure so you can start digging around the thing to find the major root(s).
4. Stomp-cut major roots with shovel, the rest will pop right out.

My 3033R (1600 lb. lift) can pull most out with no digging. My 855 (< 1000 lb. lift) usually needed some digging around to get a mature boxwood free. Contact pressure / ground damage is proportional to force required to pull the bush, obviously, but usually not enough to even worry about. It'll heave back out with the next frost, or roll back out over the course of a mowing season.

I've also on some occasions flooded the area with a garden hose. It makes for some messy boots, but usually helps ease the bush out of dry soil with less or no digging, by irrigating the dirt away from the roots.

 

[kenbgbill]

MIL has about a dozen (maybe a little more) bushes that were injured by severe cold last winter and then finished off by more severe cold this winter. Now that it’s spring she wants me to help her pull them up so she can replace them. These are mostly your typical boxwood type residential bushes that you commonly see in front of people’s houses in the eastern part of the country. My experience with them is that the smaller/younger ones aren’t too much of a fight to pull up, but established ones can have extensive root systems. So, I plan to haul my compact tractor to her house in a couple of weeks to hopefully make the job easier.

What would you guys do? Use the 3-point hitch to pop them up out of the ground, or use the loader with a chain on the bolt on hooks that I added to the bucket to pull them up? I’m considering just using the 3-point because then I’ll have more leverage and less likely to get the tractor tipsy. Also, no strain on the front axle. On the other hand, the 3-point has limited range of motion and it’s harder to cinch the chain up tight and then have the range to pull the bush totally free. Hmmm….

If they’re close enough to a hose bib, saturate the ground with water and hook a tow strap to a bumper…..they should pop right out. Push the hose into the ground a foot or two. Get them really wet down deep.

 

[Blue Mule]

So just to update, the job went better than expected. Wife ended up claiming the seat of the tractor, so actually all I had to do was handle rigging the chain to the bushes. That sped things up. Ended up pulling 15 to 20 bushes total. Some smaller and some larger but all of them had been in the ground for a couple of decades. I wrapped one end of the chain around the base and cinched on a link as tight as I could to "choke" it. Then hooked the clevis of the other end of the chain onto a link near the base also. This gave me a large loop of open chain that I then could connect to the two bolt on hooks I put on the tractor bucket as needed, which made the force even across the frame of the loader (imagine the chain making a "V" shape coming from two points on the loader to one point at the bush). The Workmaster 40 at idle had enough power and flow to pull up all the bushes without much fight. There was only one bush that fought us a bit, and on that one we just rocked the bush back and forth (hydro trans is awesome for work like this) until the roots let go and up it came.

For about half of the bushes there were access issues, so I connected the tractor end of the chain to the draw bar, ran the full length of chain plus a fabric tow strap to the bushes, had the wife drop her down into low range, and pulled horizontally. To my surprise the tractor ripped even the largest bushes in the yard right out like that. One in particular was such a large bush that it alone filled up the entire bed of my F-250 pickup. On that one I had to rig the strap up about half way on the trunk of the bush for leverage, then the Workmaster pulled it out.

These larger compact tractors are beasts. I figure with the FEL, box blade on the rear for ballast, fluid in the tires, etc. it probably sits at around 5,000 lbs. curb weight and in 4WD low range it seemed like it would pull anything I hooked to it. What a back saver!!

If there was any issue at all with the job, and I expected this, it was that the tractor left depressions in the lawn. So next trip to her house I'll take my lawn roller and smooth it all back out for her.