Old mountain ash and rainforest trees lit by the sun in a damp gully

Stump grinding in the Yarra Valley

A stump can be ground below the surface, dug out, or left. On a house block grinding is usually the tidy answer; in a paddock or on the river flats, access and the ground itself decide more of it.

We connect you with a local arborist who works in the Yarra Valley.

Ask for a quote

Yarra Ranges National Park, near Warburton. Photo: Miffymaws, CC BY-SA 4.0

Three ways to deal with a stump

Grind it out. A grinder chews the stump down below ground level, so lawn, a garden bed or a slab can go over the spot. The roots are left to rot where they are.
Dig it out. An excavator lifts the stump and its main roots. The hole is bigger and has to be filled, and the machine has to reach it.
Leave it. Free, but plenty of trees sprout again from a cut stump, eucalypts included, and keep at it until the stump is dead.

Stumps in a paddock

Out on the land the job is often several old stumps rather than one, sometimes from trees cleared long ago. Say how many there are, roughly how wide, and how a machine gets to them: a gate width, a creek crossing, wet ground in winter. A photo of each and one of the access track saves a site visit.

If the tree is still standing, the permit question comes first. Removing it depends on your overlay and its size, and the permit guide covers each one.

On flood-overlay land

Land along the Yarra and its creeks is often under the Land Subject to Inundation Overlay. It needs a permit for works, and clause 62.02 keeps that permit away from removing trees and vegetation. Earthworks are another matter. Digging out a root ball and bringing in fill changes the ground the overlay is there to watch, so if your property report lists LSIO, ask the council before a stump is dug out. Grinding leaves the ground much as it was.

A free VicPlan property report shows whether your block is under it.

Checked 23 October 2026 against Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 44.04 (Land Subject to Inundation Overlay) and Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 62.02 (buildings and works not requiring a permit).

Pipes and cables first

The grinder works below the surface, where water, gas, power and phone lines can run. Before You Dig Australia sends free plans of what its members own underground; lodge the enquiry before the job.

Your own pipes are not on those plans. That includes a septic tank's pipes and trenches, and a farm's water lines to troughs. Show whoever is grinding where they run.

Checked 23 October 2026 against Before You Dig Australia: FAQs.

The chips

Grinding leaves a pile of wood chips and soil about where the stump was. Use it as mulch or have it carted away, and say which when you ask a local arborist for a quote. Stumps and roots aren't taken in Yarra Ranges' bundled branch collection.

Checked 23 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Council: bundled branch collection.

Ask for a quote

Tell us where you are and what needs doing. We pass it to a local arborist who works in the Yarra Valley. They ring you back to talk about the job.

Suburb

Anything else? Optional

How tall the tree is, how close to the house, or whether you can get a truck in.

Photos Optional, up to 4

A photo of the whole tree and one of what's around it help with the quote.

Your name

Phone

Your name, number, what you write and your photos reach us by email and go on to a local arborist who works in the Yarra Valley, and to no one else. We keep a note that a request came in, with the time, the page, the suburb and the job, so we can count them. Privacy.