Can you grind apple, pear and plum stumps?
Yes — we grind apple, cherry, pear and plum stumps across Kent. Typical price is £100 to £200 per stump for a single garden tree, with every extra stump on the same visit 35% cheaper. Pear is the hardest of the four; plum carries the highest regrowth risk.
Most fruit trees in Kent gardens sit between 8 and 18 inches in diameter at ground level, which puts them firmly in the small-to-medium price bracket. Old orchard standards on M25 rootstock can push past 24 inches; those grind closer to the £200 mark on their own, and faster as part of a multi-stump priced job. Cherry deserves its own page because suckering behaviour differs from the other three — see our dedicated cherry stump grinding guide.
How much does fruit tree stump removal cost?
Fruit tree stump removal costs £100 to £200 per stump in Kent, because most orchard trees sit in the 8–18 inch range. Every extra stump on the same visit drops 35%. A day rate for old orchard clearance is £450 to £650, covering 8 to 15 stumps depending on size and ground.
| Job type | Stump count | Typical price | Time on site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single garden fruit tree | 1 | £100–£200 | 30–90 min |
| Garden pair (e.g. apple + plum) | 2 | £170–£300 | 1–2 hr |
| Smallholding row | 4–8 | £280–£480 | Half day |
| Old orchard clearance | 8–15+ | £450–£650 day rate | Full day |
The per-stump rate falls fast on multi-stump jobs because the grinder is already on site, fuelled, and the chip pile is one heap rather than ten. Chartham and Sittingbourne orchard work most often books as a full day; single-tree garden jobs in Faversham or Deal usually wrap before lunch.
Will a fruit tree stump grow back?
It depends on the species. Apple and pear stumps regrow rarely — risk under 10% once ground to 200mm. Cherry suckers from surface roots in roughly 25% of cases. Plum is the worst at up to 40% sucker risk from rootstock, so we grind plum 250mm deep as standard to break the suckering layer.
| Species | Janka (lbf) | Typical stump | Grind time | Regrowth risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple (Malus domestica) | 1,160 — medium-hard | 8"–18" (up to 24" old standards) | 30–60 min | Low (under 10%) |
| Cherry (Prunus avium) | 950 — medium | 10"–20" | 30–60 min | Medium (around 25% — suckers) |
| Pear (Pyrus communis) | 1,660 — hard | 10"–20" | 45–90 min | Low (under 10%) |
| Plum (Prunus domestica) | 1,100 — medium-hard | 8"–16" | 30–60 min | High (up to 40% — rootstock suckers) |
Pear is the hardwood surprise on this list — Janka 1,660 lbf puts it harder than English oak, and grinding time runs closer to a small oak than a small apple. Plum's risk comes from grafted rootstock (typically St Julien A or Pixy) that throws shoots from underground roots once the trunk is gone. Grinding to 250mm and a single root-killer treatment cuts that risk to single digits.
Why is Kent the Garden of England for fruit trees?
Kent earned the Garden of England name because its chalk soil, sheltered river valleys and 1,650 sun hours a year suit apple, cherry, pear and plum better than anywhere else in the UK. At peak in the 1950s Kent had 24,000 hectares of orchard. Today around 4,000 hectares remain, plus thousands of old stumps in gardens, smallholdings and former orchard land.
The orchard heritage is local and specific. Bapchild and the lanes east of Sittingbourne were apple country from the 1880s. Faversham's Brogdale holds the National Fruit Collection — over 2,000 apple varieties on one site. The Great Stour valley running through Chartham still has working cherry and apple ground. Deal's Georgian houses were built with walled fruit gardens, and many of those stumps are only now being cleared as houses change hands.
What this means for stump grinding work: we see far more fruit tree stumps in Kent than a grinder in Surrey or Essex ever would. Old grafted standards, lichen-covered stumps, awkward walled-garden access, and orchard rows on heavy clay are routine here, not exceptional.
How do you clear an old orchard?
We clear orchards on a day rate of £450 to £650, grinding 8 to 15 stumps in one visit depending on diameter. A 26-inch tracked grinder handles open orchard ground; a 21-inch narrow-access machine fits walled gardens through a 36-inch gate. All chips backfilled, roots ground to 200–250mm, site swept clean by 5pm.
Machine selection matters. Old orchard ground is usually unfenced or has wide field gates, which suits a tracked SC60TX-class grinder cutting through three to four stumps per hour. Walled fruit gardens — common in Deal and Faversham — need the narrow tow-behind, which is slower but reaches stumps no tracked machine can. Most full-day clearances mix the two if the site allows.
For sites with more than 15 stumps, we quote on a two-day or three-day plan after a site visit. Send a photo, postcode and rough stump count and we return a fixed price within the hour — no callout fee, no deposit, no obligation.
