How to get rid of roots of baby trees?

SareBear30

Hi everyone, I usually hang out on my local boards but wanted to ask you experts a question about something that has stumped me since we bought our house about a year ago.

The previous owner didn't live there long and was a widowed mom to a teenage daughter, so she did nothing to the yard and it was full of weeds when we moved in. We heard from other neighbors that te previous owners never did much either. So there were no flower beds in the backyard, just grass and a ton of ivy ground cover that we realized was covering a bunch of baby trees. We cut them down and tore out the roots as much as possible (there were just too many and they were boring hackberry.)

However, there are a few that keep coming back. I dig and dig and pull but never seem to get to the beginning of the root, so they keep coming back up. Anything I can do to kill the stump or make it stop coming back? They aren't thick, maybe the size of a dime at most.

Thanks a million!

Magdala9

Unless you get rid of all of the root, it will come back.  I would cut away 1 foot all around the sapling and remove 5 inches of dirt for screening.  Once the dirt was screened, I could just dump the roots that did not screen.    I had similar problems with maple saplings under ivy.  None of the weed killers worked for maple saplings. 

~NB~

I would let them grow this summer, and spray them with glyphosate in October.