Pine Forest-What to Do?

[scodemike]

Myself personally if it is close to my house I like the ground cleaned up. You don't want to create more work by planting shade tolerant grass that needs to be mowed.
Steamboat Fire Prevention - Colorado State Forest Service - Colorado State University

Thanks for the link, I never thought to look there. After reading their suggestions I am in pretty good shape. Some trees are slightly closer than they recommend, but for the most part I am at a safe distance.

My wife would like to have some sort of lawn, but I told her it would probably not grow given all the needles. At least it sounds good.

 

[Kays Supply]

The guy I drink coffee with every Saturday, told me not to rake up "all" the needles under my pines. He was a tree trimmer for most of his life. He says the trees benefit from the decay and acid of the old needles. He says that the trees that were kept too clean had more troulble than the ones left alone. I guess he would know. He is the one called to clean up the mistakes.

 

[SuperDuty335]

How big are the trees? You may not have a market for pine needles where you are. It seems to be a southeastern US trend.

 

[Johndeere3720]

I would clean up some of them around the edge of your land as a fire burrier to try to cut the fire fuel down incase.

 

[SOS]

If your wife wants something other than just pine, holley grows great in acid soil.

 

[foggy1111]

We have a cabin at the lake which is in the middle of large red and white pine trees, some fir, spruce, and a few hardwoods mixed in too. The pine tree needles will not allow much vegetation to grow due to the acid soils...which is a good thing.....unless you want grass. We keep an area around the cabin clear of the pine needles and have a small lawn area, which we try to keep up. We always mow to force the needles to the outside perimeter of the yard. We rake and care for the lawn once each spring and fall...and fertilize twice a year. I plan to put some lime on the grass area to get the PH up and help the grass along. Still....the lawn gets sparce in the shady areas and if we dont get the needles off the grass. In some areas the pine needles are almost a foot deep. Without some work, the needles will kill the grass.