pine trees

vkalideen – posted 07 October 2009 06:46

Hi there, I have a number of tall pine trees in our garden (johannesburg south africa) and I need to plant grass under there. We transplanted some grass from other parts of the garden there. Some of it has grown but overall it looks like a big sandy patch with a little grass.The soil seems very dry and grass has not been growing well there. What would be best to get some grass growing under pine trees.thank you

cohiba – posted 07 October 2009 14:15

With the heavy shade your only real choice is fine fescue. The pines have a tendency to be very acidic so you may also have to adjust the pH of the soil under the trees. The trees will certainly be competing for water with the turf and that will be an issue as well. Raise the canopy on the trees to allow more light to infiltrate.

Good Luck.

Turfguy_UF – posted 09 October 2009 13:47

This is to cool. To often we talk about the US and it’s problems. This is a cool chance to help some out across the pong .

If you can, can you tell me what type of grasses are available to you there, and what your conditions are temperature wise in the summer and winter, and also your rain fall.

As mentioned before the Pine trees are going to compete very heavily with any type of grass you put under it. I would like to suggest that you simply dont put any grass within 10-15′ of the pine trees. I say this for a couple of reasons. One it can be harmful to the tree itself, as the grass will compete with the tree for nutrients, and water. Also there are studies that show trees do best with only mulch under their canopies. Also there are many pictures of golf courses showing a tree line, and from 15′ away from that tree line where the grass is inside that 15′ it is very weak.

Also constantly driving your mower over the roots can cause compaction and you can even cut roots that are on the surface. Both cases are bad for the trees.

So to save some possible trouble I would suggest mulching the tree base with their own pine needles, and forming a nice edge 10-15′ around the trees.

If this is not possible due to the amount of trees you have and if you did this would make your lawn look like a bunch of circles with spots of sod, then I would need to know your conditions and grasses available to you. But I would still try to get some form of a buffer between trunk of the tree and the grass line.

Hope that helps.

TurfGuy