When I bought my house there was an enormous tree in the middle of my backyard. While I love the two large trees in my front yard, this tree was not doing much for me.
My main problem with it was that it was not healthy and was continuously dropping large branches into the backyard and the roof of my garage. I was nervous that it would eventually do some damage to my garage or even worse to my house and I wanted to get it removed.
From a secondary standpoint, my backyard had effectively no sunlight because the tree was so large it shaded everything. The yard was constantly full of debris dumped down from the tree and I had a hard time getting the grass to grow decently.
Getting a large tree taken down is no inexpensive task. I got a few quotes and then found a guy that would do it for half the price, but didn't grind down the stump. I figured that I could find someone to grind down the stump for much less so in November of 2011 I had the tree removed.
I had fun periodically taking a peek at the progress from my upstairs back bedroom. There was a ton of branches and wood, filling up their trailer a few times over. After two days my tree was finally gone.
At the end, I was left with this very large stump, smack dab in the middle of my back yard.
I hired a guy to grind down the stump for a great price in April 2012 and was excited to reclaim my yard.
Unfortunately, he finished up while I was out and he left it so that it was a little higher than the grass around it. I was unhappy with that because if I covered it with dirt and grass it would make a little hill in the middle of my backyard which I definitely didn't want.
I was really frustrated, so much so that I just left it alone all last summer and didn't deal with it. This summer I need to get it addressed. My backyard is not very evenly graded so I may just try to take care of everything at one time, but I am not sure.
On the positive side, I do love how opened up my yard is without the tree and the backyard grass has become much more lush. Eventually, I will make it something respectable back there...