what about a nice thick layer of bark mulch. That seems to an entire year plus around my maple and pine trees here in Michigan. I am looking at some retirement property in Florida right now and would like to plant a half dozen pecans but will only be bale to visit them once or twice a year. The bark also helps keep moisture around the tree here as well.
I think that should work great. It would even break down and help fertilize the trees. I didn’t try that because I had the pine straw and didn’t want to buy the mulch. I plan to try that method when I do some further land clearing on my property. I’ll mulch some pine trees that I plan to clear. My brother in law uses the mulch method in his home gardening and has had great success.
Right now my trees are anywhere from about 12 to 20 feet tall, at maturity they should be 60 ft plus. Mine are planted with a 60 foot spacing between each tree. We did a video on spacing your trees out that you may find helpful. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VpH0iasQiYs.html
Hey friend I have two very important questions 1. I’m having a lot of trouble with fire ants around the base of my new trees thousands, 2. We have coastal grass here and due to the watering the new trees the coastal gets real thick , don’t want to spray due to killing the trees? Help Silas
Thanks for the great questions! I’ve had good luck with off the shelf ant killers from hardware stores. I’ve also noticed that sometimes they just leave on their own after awhile. When my trees were really small I used a plastic shield that I made from the side of a 55 gallon drum. I would use that and try to wait for calm winds before spraying with a backpack sprayer. If I wasn’t doing that my preferred method to smother the grass would be to use weed cloth (about a 3’x 3’ piece per tree).
Did you find a organic spray to handle weeds? I looked up Eco Might and it said California tested it and it basically has a lot of the same stuff round up has in it. I really don’t want to have to spray roundup if at all possible. Would shallow plowing work as long as you didn’t get into the roots? TIA
I've not found another organic spray. Also, I have not tried shallow plowing but I suspect that you would probably be better off to just hand weed near the trees and mow the rest of the area vs risking erosion or possible root and irrigation damage for the plow.
