On Sun, 22 May 2005 16:52:20 GMT, "p-nut" wrote:

Chuck wrote:
Do the pine needles have their own special
chemicals to kill every thing else.. or is it they change the ph to a
point nothing else wants to grow?
Thanks..

2 yrs ago when we bought our house there was this 20ft pine tree in our
front yard that was never trimmed.
It looked terrible imo.
I trimmed the branches up high enough so that I could mow under it and
cleaned all the dead stuff out of the center of it.
I raked all the yrs worth of needles up (7 38gl trash bags worth) and put
down seed and straw.
This yr I have a great looking lawn around it with little to no needles
dropping due to it being cleaned out.
Just have to deal with the cones dropping which I just bag the grass which
cut/picks them up.

It was a lot of work but it looks great around it now.

Thanks for the feedback..
I used to have pine trees in this area and the neighbor still does.
I had all mine removed early last fall. The neighbor's pines are tall
enough with no lower branches as to not shade the area much.
I thought that someone here had posted a year or so ago that the soil
would automatically be high or low ph or that the pine needles put
something in the soil, which kept other things from competing with the
small pine saplings..
I do need to get just a small amount of needles up, scratch surface
and reseed..Might throw a bag or two of lime out anyway...
I keep meaning to have the soil samples done... procrastination is my
biggest hobby
Chuck..