Ah, you came to the right place--I have lots of experience with this. But, sorry, not in Texas, and not with your kind of pines. Many conifers do quite well growing up among weeds--if the weeds are not too tall and don't provide dense shade over the seedlings. For example, most of the white pine stands that exist today in new England seeded themselves and grew up in old fields with no tending at all. But the weeds on these sites were not very tall or very dense because the soils were partially worn-out old farm soils. In other richer sites where weeds such as goldenrod and asters, can grow to 5 or 6 feet in a wet year, the pines have no chance--they will get no sun, and in the winter when snows crush down the weed stalks, the little trees will be crushed down and completely covered. You say that the pines on your place were totally covered by the weeds--well, sorry, I doubt that they were so covered that they got no sun. The weeds may have filtered the sun, but not totally blocked it as some of the weeds around here would do if not controlled. I have warned Tom, who has posted just before me here, that he can't let his Norway spruce seedlings get overtopped by weeds--except for the light shade provided by grass "flower" stalks, etc. If those little trees are overtopped so very much of the sun is blocked, his trees will be so weakened that he would be better off replanting than trying to help these weakened seedlings recover. The bottom line is that not all weeds are the same. but most, if not all pine and other conifer seedlings are the same--they will need enough sun to grow. --Spruce

Passiflora of some kind.

Many issues being tripped over here. But let me just repeat....for the specific purpose of killing broadleaved weeds in turf, the weed and feed products trade convenience for efficiency. The efficiency that is being lost is not on the part of the person doing the application, or the person who happens to own the property. No, the inefficiency is on the part of the herbicidal portion of the product-very little of it getting to where it can do its job. Fill up a canister sprayer with a liquid formulation of the very same herbicides and you will achieve far greater weed control while using perhaps 10% of actual active ingredient. That's what I'm saying. Whether or not to use these materials is a topic for another day, but if one must, then please, let's use those formulations that go to their targets, not those like this one, so-called weed n feed, where most of the herbicide never even targets the plants we wish to target. Most of it ends up washing down into the drains and on into our waterways. without getting into a finger-pointing exercise, any amount of this going on should be considered a problem, should it not?

sounds like you significantly changed water management and soil heating significantly ... would it be much different that changing soil depth over a tree root mass ...??? look for new buds forming back behind the lost branch tips .... i usually mention tree time ... and wonder if something can really happen in 2 to 5 days .. as you note ... just navel gazing .. if we rule out the rain ... what could have happened a bit further back in time ... a late very minor frost???? .. which only showed after extreme summer heat ... who knows ... look for next years buds .... ken