Well, actually two questions.

If you checked out yesterday's post, you'll have read that the city came by and planted a new tree last week. They ground up the old stump and roots where the new tree is planted, but there are still quite a bit of thick roots remaining outside of the mulched area.

Yesterday, I used our holiday and lovely weather (nearly 100 degrees) to start digging up the area. I had hoped to be able to get the roots out of the way. All in all, it went pretty well, and as you can see from the photo, I made a good amount of headway along the perimeter. 

There are still a handful of large roots that we'll (see how I just invited Wendy into the digging?) need to tackle.

That leads me to my two questions:

1. Given that I really only have a shovel, axe, sawzall, and drill at my disposal, what are the best ways I can remove at least the top bit of the most stubborn stump roots? Especially the one immediately to the right of the water meter cover.

2. We're also in discussions about the border we'd like to put around this area. Some neighbors have no surround, others have a brick border, and some have pressure treated wood with bolts into the ground. Wendy wants to do a brick surround, but as you can see from the photo below, one of the corners of the bed is curved, which could make a masonry project challenging to say the least. And, given that our first masonry project (a brick archway over our back gate) came crashing down in a storm, masonry gives me a nervous tick.

What is your vote? What material should we use for the border? Also, please let me know if you have any good magical root grinding techniques or disintegration potions. We'd love your input.