You have my (and many other people's) sympathy. Lots of us after the lousy November/December weather this winter are in the same boat. I've lost several but none of my Phormiums. The New Zealand flax has the same type of leaf as a cordy but is far hardier and within a few years will form a large bush, that will cover the cut-down stumps.

Clematis alpina is my favourite plant for covering stumps. Ours are covered in lovely mauve flowers now and then will have fluffy seedheads to be admired.

Or...... remove the stump!! About to remove mine so no doubt there will be an update. Have removed a large conifer last year and trimmed my sycamores roots while creating a border - hoping this will be much easier! Practice makes perfect eh!

Update 1! Similar size to yours, already cut down trunks with ease using rip saw. Started removing stump yesterday by undermining it. So far 70% round, about 3' deep. Looks like the root is tapering at this depth but I haven't yet found the bottom! Wonder how much deeper to go - perhaps a chainsaw will remove enough root, leave rest to rot. Watch this space!

Ah, Adwen, you have discovered the problem with removing stumps completely. In a tree size cordy they can go down as far as 8'. One of my neighbours tried to move one 3 or 4 years ago (against all advice by the way) and only succeeded in breaking off the root at about 5' down and killing the cordy. Doesn't matter with one that is already dead of course so you are quite right in suggesting you should leave some of it to rot.

Hi thanks everyone for your kind help . x