What to put under fruit trees?

General Fruit Growing
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I live in a very hot, dry climate. I have a variety of fruit trees and shrubs. They are all under 7 years old, so not huge yet.

I’m a little stymied about what to put under the trees, as I’m tired of trying to weed around them.

Some people recommend straw but the persistent perennial weeds like bind weed and silver nightshade grow right through it and the straw makes it hard to weed.

Some recommend companion plants under the trees but in our climate these would require daily watering (most of the trees get watered once or twice a week).

And I’m also concerned that companion perennials or annuals would soak up much of the water that needs to work its way down into the soil around the trees.

Some of our native perennial grasses tend to sprout up around the trees and, unlike the nasty annual grasses, they are fairly desirable. The main one is Sporobolus cryptandrus, one of my favorites. It’s tidy, attractive, creates a lot of straw, and even has edible seeds. But I’m concerned again that letting these colonize under the trees will soak up all the moisture that I apply during irrigation.

Right now I’m tempted to put weed barrier and cover it with bark. The idea of companion plants under the trees has an appeal, but what about the amount of water they would need and their competition for water?

Any thoughts or ideas?

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You can’t go wrong with cardboard covered by compost and a good wood chip mulch.

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Plants that require daily watering under a fruit tree probably isn’t he wisest choice - especially if you say you’re in a hot/dry climate.

In general mulch/wood chips is desired under your trees, as it will help hold moisture, add organics to the soil, promote fungal activity and worms, etc. - all beneficial to growing conditions.

IMO skip the synthetic weed barrier though, a thick layer of mulch is generally enough. If you need to temporarily block and kill grass/weeds, try 2-3 overlapped layers of large cardboard sheets, underneath 6+" of wood chip mulch. I like to fillup my truck with the largest cardboard I can pull out of the public cardboard dumpster (I use my long-handle cultivator tool like a gaff so I don’t have to climb inside)

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I live in a very wet climate so this might not be that useful to you, but just in case, this is what I do:

Here, once a tree is established it doesn’t really seem to be affected by any amount of weed pressure and, if left alone, it will end up surrounded in tiny, fruitless, but mostly harmless wild strawberries. I underplant most of my trees with herbs, small native shrubs and grasses, and echinacea, in order to have a slight deer barrier, instead of the useless, deer-attractant strawberries. I’ve noticed that in dry periods the herbs are the first to wilt or die back, not the trees. (But that might be a different situation in your climate).

I use chives, lavender, santolina and southernwood, as well as bayberry (myrica pennsylvanica) and sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina) which are both nitrogen fixers native to my area and grow in dry areas.

I originally used straw and wood chips under my trees and still add a bit every few years, but since the herbs have gotten established the amount I add has diminished by a lot (a few handfuls per tree instead of a full bale of straw).

I wouldn’t use a weed barrier. The last people who owned the house we’re in now put some down to contain the goutweed edging that they (!) installed (:woman_facepalming:) around a path and almost twenty years later I’m still pulling bits of plastic entangled with goutweed out of the ground. The weeds grow on top of it, then they manage to grow through it, meanwhile it reduces the penetration of the water to the soil below, which makes it kind of pointless.

ETA: I’ve been replacing the goutweed with geranium macrorrhizum, which wilts if it gets hot and dry, but always reanimates, and it has the benefits of 1. keeping cats out of whatever area it’s in 2. Growing on top of the soil and so using basically no water 3. Acting as a mulch and shading the ground. And 4. Causing the weeds below to become etiolated, making them easier to pull out. Also it smells nice.

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I don’t know what’s worse, the weed barrier or the goutweed

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I was able to eradicate the goutweed everywhere except where the weed barrier used to be / still is. In those spots the two have fused into some kind of super-organism. so I think it’s ultimately an chicken-egg type question to remain unanswered.

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I grew way too many rhubarb seedlings, so I ended up planting one at the base of each of the apple trees we put in last spring. With lots of woodchips, everything seems pretty happy. The big leaves seem to keep the grass from spreading in as well. Other than that, aromatics like chives seem to get along nicely.

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What about comfrey-russian bocking 14 that is supposed to be non invasive. I have been considering using it.

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It wouldn’t work for them I think, comfrey has really deep roots, so in my experience with it it’s pretty thirsty stuff.

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it would take daily watering at least for the first season to get it established. And then, yes, the question is would it end up competing with the tree for limited water. I’m thinking something like a bark mulch may be the best. I suppose in wetter climates growing some ground cover might make sense but I don’t think so here.

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I’m in a hot very dry enviroment and can tell you the only thing that helps keep moisture in and weeds away are placing a weed barrier down then top mulching it with pine bark fines with pine bark nuggets on top of the fines. Just make sure your weed barrier is water permeable.

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I would recommend never using weed barrier. But I’m trying to build my soil content and that really inhibits that. It will stay very dry under it, regardless of it’s permeability

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You live in zone 6 but hot and dry? Where may i ask?

I live in portugal and its very hot and dry and i use lots of mulch and drip irrigation. I recently started to build up guilds around my trees with strawberries, egyptian walking onion, comfrey , lavender etc. In the summer I also trim the tall dry hay between trees and mulch where needed. Build up organic top soil and create life and microbiome underground

Btw i also have lots and lots of bindweed. Have you heard the saying, whatever you fight you empower? Thats bindweed…so now i leave it alone and i build better soil instead and its less invasive. Bindweed works beneficiary in nature to help bad soil become better. Create better soil and bindweed slowly dissappear. You dont find bindweed in a forest which is what nature almost always strive to

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I live in New Mexico in the southwest US. I can build better soil under my trees but nothing else grows there because I only water enough for the trees, not enough for perennial plants. So the bindweed just grows more!

I could get some native grasses established under the trees but I am concerned that they will use up too much of the water meant for the trees.

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I say lasagna system of layers of cardboard, compost, straw and wood chips. That will kill off all non rhizomes grasses and those it will basically kill off also. But most importantly you’re retaining moisture at a higher rate this way. And repeat the steps every year basically

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Another vote for cardboard plus a heavy layer woodchip mulch. Smothers any weed, does a great job of keep away new weeds, really helps retain moisture and slowly builds soil

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I’m in Alpine Texas at 4500 ft elevation with a climate very similar to the El Paso to Albuquerque area. I have 20 yrs experience growing fruit trees using bare, no mulch, black weed barrier. It works well for weed control and water savings. But it’s not good for long term soil health. The only other real negative was I think it makes the soil too hot for establishing new trees. For big trees that wasn’t an issue.

With bare weed barrier you can’t mow or weed eat but won’t need to until the weed barrier starts to breakdown after 5-10 years. Good black weed barrier lasts about that long. Once it starts breaking down it’s put down another layer or start spraying roundup.

Bare weed barrier is probably not a good idea on sloping ground because of enhanced water runoff. On level or near level ground water intake was OK for 20 years. I watered mostly by applying water to the high end and allowing it to run downhill. This was on 1-3% slope at most.

I’m pulling up the weed barrier and going grass at this point. Mostly to improve the soil even though the trees did fine for 20 years with weed barrier.

I’d say don’t put down weed barrier and then cover with mulch. The mulch will allow weeds like bindweed and Bermuda grass to grow and the weed barrier will be totally defeated.

Cardboard and mulch sounds like a decent idea but it takes a massive amount of cardboard and mulch. Mulch is very expensive if you have to buy it. My outside area is about 30x60ft and 6 inches of purchased mulch would be thousands of $$$. With more need regularly.

If you have established bindweed, Bermuda, Johnson grass, or similar they will find their way up through cardboard and mulch. It may take 2-3 years but they’ll be back. But they’ll be much easier to pull or hoe out with all the mulch. I think it would take 5 years to smother the roots of those weeds and cardboard isn’t going to last more than a year or two.

Some of my fruit tree areas were level basins watered via flood irrigation. That worked very well with zero loss of water even with the occasional heavy rainstorm. A level basin is a level area surrounded by a berm. Cover that with weed barrier.

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My town and a lot of towns offer free wood chip mulch. It’s great as it’s in a huge pile so it’s already decomposed into basically compost. They will load it into my truck or trailer with their tractor when they have time. For me it’s mostly about water retention and building soil (beach sand sucks for both). If I had it to do over again I’d have started with this and slowly planted in it, as opposed to the other way around.

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You’ve got trees we have very few. Creosote bush doesn’t make mulch.

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I’m leaning toward the weed barrier. It needs to be covered with wood chips, though, or the sun will degrade it. My plan is to continue to add mulch UNDER the weed barrier every year. I can even move some of the top dressed wood chips to under the weed barrier after a year. This should allow the soil to build.

The weed barrier does seem to do some suppressing of the bind weed, though it always finds a way out. I’m experimenting with taking small areas of bind weed and weeding them weekly. I hope that after a couple years of doing that in an area, the bind weed may be eliminated.

I’ve tried cardboard and it seems cumbersome to work with and it breaks down so quickly that weeds start coming through it.