A common question in gardening groups is how to get rid of tree stumps without digging or using machinery. I personally prefer to let nature do the work for me, as I have far too many projects on the go. I have one area that used to be two meters thick and five meters long with ginger, honeysuckle, and numerous self-seeded trees. after removing what I could, I was left with multiple small but very deep stumps from the privet trees which makes the area unusable for anything and hard to maintain. so with that in mind, last summer I grew wildflowers to help with weed suppression and the stump rotting process. wood will break down much faster if surrounded by moisture, so I left the flowers to rot in winter and continued piling green waste on top. after raking it up today, there are now only three stumps left so have covered them in the leafy rich dirt and more leaf litter that's still composting down and topped it off with still drying branches from pruning and by spring it will be soft and crumbly and disintegrated. you can add dolomite lime to the wood prior to covering to speed the process but I prefer not to as it will prevent insects from eating the wood and leaf litter, which you want them to do as it makes much better compost for planting into.
the article was written on 06/03/20 edited on 04/03/21 to note that all the stumps have now disintegrated and area is free to use