Weed Control

[Newbie]

Does anyone have creative ideas for weed control around your fruit trees? Mine are all in cages which makes trimming them difficult. I sprayed around the bases last year and lost one due to overspray. I know you can buy rings but they seem to be pretty expensive. I'm not sure that typical garden fabric will work well. I was just wondering if any of you had any suggestions to reduce some of the competing weeds and to keep these trees low maintenance as they grow to a productive age.

Thank you!

 

[Telemark]

Landscape fabric with gravel on top seems to be the preferred method for low maintenance weed protection around trees.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Does anyone plant a long lived clover around their fruit trees? We do a fair amount of burning in the spring. I am planning on frost seeding clover this spring around a few of my trees to protect them from the heat. Has any else done that?


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[MW22392]

Landscape Fabric, Weed Barrier, Garden Fabric | Bulk Orders Available

Landscape fabric, also called weed barrier or garden fabric, is a fantastic way to keep out weeds while avoiding putting toxic chemicals in the earth. Our weed barrier is available in a wide range of sizes - we also offer bulk landscape fabric orders.

farmplasticsupply.com

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Does anyone plant a long lived clover around their fruit trees? We do a fair amount of burning in the spring. I am planning on frost seeding clover this spring around a few of my trees to protect them from the heat. Has any else done that?


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We had done clover planting around our young apple & crab trees about 8 years ago. The thing was, we had to spray for bugs to prevent loss of most, or all, leaves when the young trees needed leaves for photosynthesis to better establish themselves. With clover thick all around the apple trees, we ended up killing bees we didn't want to kill when we sprayed the trees. The clover itself probably added some good N to the soil - but we quit the clover and went to just grass under our trees. Easy to keep mowed. Once the apple trees get big enough that bugs won't de-foliate the trees, spraying gets less. Our apple & crab trees are at a hunting camp, so no babying like a home tree would get. Frost seeding would be good to avoid tillage around the roots - which we tried before - and killed a number of apple trees. We now do NO TILLING near fruit trees - 25 ft. minimum distance. Cost us money & time.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Does anyone have creative ideas for weed control around your fruit trees? Mine are all in cages which makes trimming them difficult. I sprayed around the bases last year and lost one due to overspray. I know you can buy rings but they seem to be pretty expensive. I'm not sure that typical garden fabric will work well. I was just wondering if any of you had any suggestions to reduce some of the competing weeds and to keep these trees low maintenance as they grow to a productive age.

Thank you!

I've also done the weed fabric and limestone screenings (fines) on top of the entire piece of weed fabric. - with good results. Before I put the stone chips down, I wrap the trunks loosely with aluminum window screen, staple it shut with regular "office" stapler, slide it down so screen sits on weed fabric, and then pile on the stone chips to a depth of about 3 inches. I make the window screen about 30" tall to account for the deepest snow we might get (mice chew under snow too!) That has kept mice and voles from chewing the bark off the trees in winter. The stone chips weigh down the weed fabric, make tunnelling tough for mice & voles, and keeps the weeds down.

When I spray for weeds around any of our fruit trees, I set the nozzle to droplets - not fine spray mist - to avoid spray drift. Then, I hold the nozzle next to the trunks and point it OUTWARDS - away from fruit tree trunks - to hit any weeds. Droplets don't drift like fine mist does. Haven't lost a tree yet using this method. I use glyphosate for the weeds, which has no residual soil activity like 2-4D and some other chemicals. Hope this helps.

 

[bigboreblr]

Same here, but I do hybrid weedmats. 3ft diameter round Weedmat with stone, then woodchips no mat underneath. I did weedmat and woodchips on my fall 2022 planting. Some have been swapped out, some are as is. No bad effects. I do have plenty of voles, but dense soil. Ammending soil too aggressively and too loosely invites moles. Don''t need a tamper, but pus the soil in a bit with your feet, or gently with your hands around the roots.

Trim them low branches right off, then there's no worries of gly damage. Glyphosate or clethodim is about the only ones you should use. Some say getting on the trunk isn't good when theyre real young. 3oz per gallon of 41% is about max. Forgot what I use for clethodim. Premixed roundup's at the store often have more than gly. I am an agressive pruner, so anything that low is gone when planting, or after the 1st year. Spraying a rag and wiping the weeds is an option too.

Far as cages go, I like them easy to open. 2 or 3 zip ties or wire ties. Easy to open, just keep spare stuff around. I just about always do tree work with some pruners, pliers, zip ties, metal wire, and jute cord handy. Ant killer too.

I have separate small spryers for roundup and malathion. Sometimes I see caterpillars attacking a tree or two.

 

[RGrizzzz]

Landscape fabric++

 

[TreeDaddy]

For those that use mulch: any concerns that pine bark mulch could adversely affect trees by lowering pH?

bill

 

[Newbie]

For those that use mulch: any concerns that pine bark mulch could adversely affect trees by lowering pH?

bill

My aversion to mulch is that it just doesn't hold weeds down that well. Inevitably, weeds grow either through or in the mulch bed and you're stuck with the same mess.

 

[Telemark]

For those that use mulch: any concerns that pine bark mulch could adversely affect trees by lowering pH?

bill

Yeah, I just sprinkle a little pelletized lime on the mulch.

 

[bigboreblr]

I spread about a pickup dumptruck load of chipped up spruce around my trees. Thy all enjoyed it this summer.

Yes weeds grow through the mulch. But, the mulch is there to cover the soil where it would otherwise be bare ground after you sprayed the weeds dead. Also, at some point you may get bare ground from the trees shading when they get mature. Most sites get enough light between the trees, but dense ones don't.

I even spread about an inch of those chips in a 1/0th acre or so food plot expansion. Some spots had a tough time germinating with the woodchips on top. OTher than that, everything grew ok. Might of been a benefit considering the dry fall here in NY.

Also, the bark rots much slowly than the cheap mulch. Which is usualy peel bark or chips that go through a tubb grinder. The faster rotting stuff is likely worse than pine bark. Probably around 2 bags per tree on my 45 tree young plantings at home. A few trees got 3 to 4 bags. They seemed to grew even faster. Big box stores had a clearance for $1 a bag. Filled up the 1/2 ton pick 3 times about 25 bags a trip. My low CEC sandy soil at camp got the same treatment. That would likely be more sensitive to low pH rotting situations. Seemed to work good there too.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

We don't use mulch because it attracts mice & voles to make their homes & tunnels in it. Stone chips for us.