Southeast, US
New home to me. I’m not crazy about having a perfect lawn but looking to make some improvements.
Would it make sense to do anything under this tree where is mostly just dirt?
Unsure if it makes sense to add grass seed or maybe add a ring of mulch? Leave as is? What would you do?
by SupplyChainOne
5 Comments
I put in a bed and planted ginger, just me. I see that often being from Louisiana.
Remove the tree, stump grind, and lay sod. That’s a Bradford pear, go ahead and get rid of it now before it splits in half.
>Unsure if it makes sense to add grass seed or maybe a ring of mulch?
If you go the grass seed route, be prepared to re-seed every year, because the grass likely won’t survive the summer/winter when their roots are blocked by the tree’s roots.
A ring of mulch would be the better solution if you don’t want to re-seed that area every year.
In a tree vs grass scenario, tree always wins.
Theoretically you could grow grass under that tree but you’ll have to dose a ton more fertilizer because the tree always gets first dibs and the amount it yoinks will continuously increase as the tree grows.
Best and easiest green thumbs up way to manage this is to put down a layer cake of compost, raw non glossy non coated cardboard with no tape on it, and lastly untreated unprocessed uncoated wood chips in a donut shape (thinnest near the tree, thicker band around) over the dead dirt area.
The compost will supply the tree with nutrients and organic material that it may have stripped from the soil as it grew. The cardboard will act as non-toxic biodegradeable landscaping fabric that the next owners of your home wont hate you for. As the wood chips decompose they will starve the surface of your donut of nitrogen, inhibiting weed growth and as they fully decompose into dirt they will essentially become compost for your tree and release the nitrogen they absorbed back into the soil.
Keep topping it with new cardboard and fresh woodchips as needed.
put mulch under it