Stump grinding in Gardnerville Ranchos, NV

The Ranchos is the largest community in Douglas County's valley, with about 12,100 residents and nearly 5,000 homes, 86% of them single-family houses (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024). Most went up within a couple of decades of each other, and so did their trees.

At a glance

• Median home built in 1987: yard trees approaching 40 years old
• Sprouting stumps ground to stop regrowth
• Stumps from our removals or from someone else's
• About 26 miles from our Carson City yard

Why are there so many full-size stumps in the Ranchos now?

Timing. A tree planted with a house in the mid-1980s has had close to forty years to grow. Fast-growing shade trees planted for quick cover are often the first to outgrow their space, crack or die back, and they get removed. About 28% of Ranchos homes were built before 1980, so some trees are older still.

A forty-year-old shade tree leaves a wide stump with surface roots running out into the lawn. That is a bigger grinding job than the sapling-size stumps of a new subdivision, and it is worth saying how far out you want the surface roots chased when you ask for an estimate.

Which Ranchos stumps come back to life?

The fast growers. Cottonwoods, poplars, Siberian elms, willows, aspens and black locust can all push up shoots from the stump or from roots after the trunk is cut. A stump that was cut flush and forgotten can turn into a thicket in a couple of seasons. Stump grinding removes the stump from the ground and helps prevent new foliage from growing from the roots.

Conifer stumps do not do this. If yours was a pine or a spruce, grinding is about reclaiming the space.

Someone else cut the tree. Will you still grind the stump?

Yes. Old stumps are welcome, and so are stumps left after a homeowner or a neighbor took the tree down. Send a photo with something in it for scale and a note about how to reach it. If you heat with wood, as about 5% of Ranchos households mainly do, the trunk may already be in your woodpile and the stump is all that is left for us.

Lawn, gravel or a new tree?

Tell us what the spot is going to become. For lawn, the chips are raked out and soil goes in. For rock or gravel landscaping, the grindings need to come out so the surface does not settle as the wood breaks down. For a new tree, read can you plant after stump grinding?. The Ranchos is in USDA hardiness zone 6b.

Getting there

The Ranchos is about 26 miles from our yard on US Highway 50 East, about 36 minutes without traffic. A stump can also be added to a tree removal estimate so everything is handled in one visit.