ALEX MOTYKA, Mansfield

A. The berries are not likely to become toxic, and the bushes will survive. Water was used as a carrier to inject the chemicals into the wood, and with water as a carrier, water will not leach out the chemicals. The only time chemicals are released from the wood is when the wood is new, and such chemicals are residue left on the surfaces, which was washed away by weather. Sealing makes little difference in holding the chemicals in the wood, and sealing should be done every year or two anyway.

Q. I am taking many trees from my lot next to my house. The tree cutters propose chipping the trees and using the chips to fill the stump holes, which would be less expensive than hauling the tree away. Are the chips acceptable as fill? Would such fill attract insects?

ROD BHATIA, Weston

A. Yes and no. Yes, chips are acceptable as fill in this case. No, such fill will not attract insects any more than any wood will. One word of caution: The chips will decay, and the fill will depress, requiring addition of more fill, sooner or later, to level off the holes. And, wood chips pull nitrogen out of the soil; if you plan to plant anything in that area, be sure to lime the soil heavily.

Q. The previous owners of my house left a large tree stump in the yard. Five years later, the stump is soft and punky. Can I break it up myself? How much room do I need to plant a small tree in the same space?

M.C., Milford

A. You can break up anything that is easy enough to come up with a spade or other garden tool. That may not be very deep. If there is a lot of sound wood left, hire a stump grinder, a professional with a humungous machine that literally grinds up wood, and as deep into the ground as the tree goes. Try to get rid of roots as much as practicable. They will decay, but it will take longer.

As for space for the new, small tree, such trees need a fair amount of space to grow in. This means a space twice as wide and twice as deep as the root ball.

Q. After I plowed and resodded my tiny lawn (12 by 16 feet), then fertilized, recently, I saw tiny grubs in the lawn. The fact that they were in brand-new sod surprised me. How can I get rid of them?

R.L., Braintree

A. Well, you have the right-size lawn, anyway. The tiny grubs are young ones, the autumn batch of a summer's worth of progeny from Japanese beetles. They may have come in with the new sod. Treat with a grubicide; there are many on the market and garden centers sell them. Surviving grubs will go deeper into the ground in winter and hibernate, ready to go to work in the spring.

And, remember last spring and early summer, when New England was invaded by thousands of grubs, followed by cavorting crows and skittering skunks (not at the same time) feasting on the grubs and tearing up the lawns? At least they ate a lot of grubs.

And let's hope the great grub attack does not repeat itself.

Q. My very large maple has big holes in both sides of the trunk, near ground level. Can I fill those holes with concrete or other type of material to keep the tree stable?

GLADYS SULLIVAN, Lynn

A. It's reasonable to do this, but make sure that filling the holes with concrete will indeed keep the tree stable, and in no imminent danger of falling over. It's a good idea to check with a tree surgeon or landscape contractor to tell you that it is safe (or not safe) to do so. Be sure to scoop out any decayed wood, until you reach sound, healthy wood before filling.

Your next priority is to find out why the holes were made. They could be caused by carpenter ants, which you can't do much about outdoors, or a disease. If it is a disease or the work of another insect, it might be possible to do something about it, with the help of an entomologist or horticulturist familiar with such insects. In other words, be sure to cover all bases.

Filling the holes with concrete, if feasible, can delay the tree's demise.

Q. I am re-landscaping the front of my house, and cut down some evergreens. I know I have to get rid of the stumps, but would any kind of stump killer affect the new plants?

BOB ZESERSON, Stoughton

A. The stump killer is pretty strong, but since it will be going into the stumps and not elsewhere, I don't think it will affect the new plantings. Since you are concerned, I suggest you hire a stump grinder to get rid of the stumps.

Q. The poison ivy is back in my yard, after I rooted it out last summer and collected a bad case of poisoning. There is not as much of it this spring, but enough to give me trouble. Any new ways of handling it?

FRANK O'LOUGHLIN, Norwell

A. Nothing new that I know of. Rooting it out is your best bet, and since you are sensitive to it, have someone else do it. The fact that there is less now than before shows that rooting it out can be effective, but you have to keep at it.

All the old tricks on killing it remain, but it still must be removed after it is killed.

Some of the old tricks: 1. Coat leaves with a herbicide containing ammonium sulfamate, repeat as necessary.

2. Spray plants with a supersaturated solution of salt and water, on a warm, sunny day. Add dishwasher liquid, to make the solution stick to the plants. It's not so good for the soil.

3. Paint leaves with vinegar. Repeat as necessary.

4. Use a flame thrower of some sort (they are sold to get rid of weeds) to burn the growth. Removing dead roots is easy, but be careful; dead parts can be poisonous. [CORRECTION - DATE: Sunday, May 18, 1997: CLARIFICATION: Oops! Well, not exactly an ``oops,'' but the handyman put in a misleading way to kill and get rid of poison ivy. In an answer to Frank O'Loughlin of

Norwell, one of the ways is to use a flame thrower (a weed killer) to kill the ivy and make it easier to remove.

Burning poison ivy is a no-no, said Chris Coakley of Wilmington and Jeff Ayers of South Weymouth. Do not burn poison ivy, they said, because the smoke is toxic and can really do a job on eyes and lungs.

Good point, gentlemen, and appreciated, but the handyman did not suggest burning the entire plant, only burning the roots at ground level, which is enough to kill the plant. Even smoke from burning roots is toxic, but is certainly less so than burning the entire plant.

So, as with all procedures and treatments of poision ivy, caution and moderation are the better parts of success.]

5. Fill a spray bottle with bleach and spray the plants liberally in the morning and let the sun do the rest. Soak roots. The bleach and sun will kill it in time. Bleach turns into a less toxic compound when it is mixed with soil.

Q. I'd like to get rid of a weeping willow. I plan to cut it at ground level, then have a stump grinder grind it to about 8 inches into the ground. Would that kill it?

JOSEPH LAND, Stoughton

A. Willows certainly can be a bit weedy, and take up an enormous amount of water. The standard way to remove a tree and to make sure it stays removed is to grind it. But I'm not convinced that the shallow grinding will go deep enough to get all the roots that could start producing again. So, instead of cutting it to the ground, leave 6 to 12 inches of the stump above the ground, drill holes in the stump and pour in salt; keep the holes filled with dissolved salt. After a year, you can have it ground with impunity.

Q. You mentioned some time ago that vinegar will kill weeds that come up between the bricks of a sidewalk or patio. I have that problem in summer, but will the vinegar hurt the bricks or anything else around the area?

JOAN NEWELL, Hingham

A. The vinegar will not hurt the bricks. But being like acid rain, it could affect other plants. So, keep it off them. Pour the vinegar on the weeds in spring; a little goes a long way. The handyman has done this on his sidewalk, with good results, and a spring treatment keeps the weeds away until mid or late summer, when the treatment can be repeated. The vinegar will eventually become diluted as it goes through the earth.

Q. I am getting more grass than I want growing through the cracks of my concrete and blacktop driveway. How can I get rid of it and keep it away?

E.B., Medford

A. Douse the cracks with vinegar; any kind will do to kill the grass and other weeds. If you do this early in the season, nipping the weeds in the bud, so to speak, you can keep them away pretty much until fall. If they persist, another dousing of vinegar will help. But you have to be persistent in the spring and any other necessary times; it is impossible to keep them away without doing anything. People with brick and block patios have similar problems, especially with patios in the sun. The vinegar, confined to under the pavement and patio, will do little or no environmental harm. If you like, you can dose the area with water the next day to dilute the vinegar.

Straight liquid bleach will also help kill the weeds, and the good thing about bleach is that it changes into a more benign element (more benign than bleach itself) when it goes into the ground.

Q. I am a little concerned about termites getting into my house where there is some three-quarter-inch hemlock mulch around the foundation. It is covered by patio blocks. Should that mulch be so close to the house?

T.B., Framingham

A. The current wisdom on termites is that there should be no wood or even wood chunks of any size near the foundation. I personally don't think it is a problem, but I also think it might attract carpenter ants, which could be a worse plague than termites. So, take it out and put it in an area away from the house (no point in letting it go to waste), and put crushed stone in its place, under the patio blocks.

Q. My neighbor cut down a tree on his own property, which is OK with me because the tree was a real ``weed tree.'' The trunk, about 12 inches in diameter, sticks up about 5 inches. My concern is that the stump might produce a few more saplings, starting the cycle all over again. How can that stump be killed?

CHARLIE DELLANNO, Somerville

A. Maples tend to grow saplings out of the stump, and so might Ailanthus, the tree of heaven, which is termed a city tree by some, a weed tree by others.

Whether or not saplings might grow, you can kill the stump by drilling holes in the trunk and filling them with salt and adding water. Add more salt as the salt dissolves. Or, have a tree specialist grind the stump out, removing it entirely.

Q. I like the idea of mulching my leaves. How long will it take for leaves to break down into compost?

SUSAN REED, Wellesley

A. If you shred the leaves (and other organic matter such as grass), the breakdown will take six months to a year. Unshredded, two years and longer, because unshredded leaves tend to lie flat and compact on each other. Being flat, they might also smother anything under them that might try to poke through in spring.

If you shredded your leaves and put them two or three inches thick on garden beds this fall, they will be virtually invisible by spring, but still provide considerable nourishment, allowing all the perennials to come up swinging.

Q. Help, I am being invaded by ivy; it is growing up the chimney and is completely overgrown. Some even came in through my back hall and through the siding shingles. The roots are huge. The electric company said bees are nesting in the ivy. What can I do? Some parts I cut, but it keeps rerooting.

D.M., Nahant, Mass.

A. The roots are so big that the ony cure is to take the whole thing down. If you cannot do that, have a tree man do it, for a big fee, but it can't be helped. Once it is removed, have the roots ground out by a stump grinder, which your tree man can do. The only way you might be able to do it yourself is to trim it from the top down, being extremely careful. If in doubt, don't, and let a tree man do it.

If you cut the trunks at the bottom and let the plant (really a tree) die, the loss of those trunks' support could cause the plant to pull down the chimney. You could treat the roots with Roundup to kill the overgrown plants. Or, drill holes in the stumps and fill them with salt; keep the holes filled with water and salt.

The bees the electric company mentioned are hornets or other kinds of wasps, not bees. They will die off in cold weather.