One foot per year is not too bad. This pine needs very little water, it is so common in the western states partly because it so drought tolerant. There are extensive tracts where it is just about or in fact the only large tree present (away from wet places like the banks of streams).

In addition to not being likely to need watering once established fertilization would not be expected to be a regular requirement. If anything yours may be getting some damage from lawn fertilizers being used there.

You don't want to use lawn herbicides near these either.

Ponderosa Pine is not the best choice for a landscape tree. It is often used in windbreaks and shelter planting. The needles are quite long, up to 8 inches.

Rate of growth depending upon altitude, soil, temperature and rainfall. Would not feed or amend soil. It likes moist well drained soil. Why not do a soil test as a base line start to resolve the slow growing issues. Also...contact your county extension agent for further assistance.

Dave

Additionally, Idaho Gardener, on the subject of turf competition, you are obviously aware of that being an issue. Whatever width of mulch bed you can tolerate around the trees, the better for those trees......within reason. No need for a twenty-foot ring around a four-foot plant, but you get the idea. After mulching plants since the mid-1970s, I refuse to believe there is anything better than that which one can obtain easily and/or cheaply. I use regular street-run wood chips or just ground-up yard waste for all my mulching needs. The key is to use something and to use enough. I don't mean the layer need be thick, but often, wider than peeps expect, is better.

True enough, ponderosa pine is not a typical "landscape plant" but who is to decide this other than the person with the landscape. I have seen a few of them used effectively in yards around here, many miles from their native home.

+oM

not many facts to work with here ...

the link seems to indicate 12 to 18 inches growth rate per year ....

if you started with a seed.. or a one or two year tiny tree... it might take years to work up to that ...

if you started with a large tree that was ball and burlapped .... it might take 2 to 4 years.. just to get over having all its roots truncated .... and let us know if you bought a large potted specimen ...

but the one fact i would like to know.. how much did they grow last year ... if you tell me anything in the 12 to 18 inch range.. well .... you are just too anxious to have a big tree ... relax.. it will get there ...

on pines.. its pretty easy to 'see' the annual growth... as the things usually put up one leader .. and then produce a whorl of branches .... and if you step back and really look... you can see how that leader growth varies from year to year.. and is usually the smallest.. the year after transplant.. and then slowly return to a normal growth pattern ... and again ... if that leader growth is getting larger and larger every season .... then the tree has finally established itself ... and will be going full bore soon enough ...

then the issue is whether you can just leave it alone to do its own thing. or whether you will try to harm it by giving it too much love .. like too much fert ... or too much water.. etc ....

how about some pix???

do you fert your lawn ???? do you water your lawn ???? any chemical sprays used on the lawn????

good luck

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Ponderosa pine makes an excellent landscape tree, if you live in SW Idaho. It enables you to tie your landscape into the local native environment. We use it along with aspen to form a matrix among which we plant the "more interesting" things.

How consistent is the water applied across your property? Ponderosa pine do OK under low water, but do even better when well watered. Our largest specimens are in the middle of the lawn.

A local planting sits in water for months. So far I have not noticed this to be a fatal problem for them. Although I don't remember seeing spontaneous (naturally sown, in native habitat) ponderosa pines in flooded sites, there certainly are other species that appear in nature at seems to be opposite ends of the moisture spectrum - and not much in-between.

Another widespread western native example is shrubby cinquefoil. Grows on well-drained slides and slopes, and in streams.

Another is the western subspecies of edible raspberry. Seen poking out of cracks in rocks on highway road cuts, as well as in the center of moving (not stagnant) mountain streams.

Extra fast growth in conifer plantations has been known to result in poor quality, weaker-than-normal wood.

I'll have to get some pictures up this weekend. By the time I get home it's dark.

My wife picked up 50 seedlings at a tree nursery in 2002? and I planted them in pots. After a couple of years in pots, I started transplanting them into the clay soil of my back yard lawn. The first couple I just dug large enough holes and put in home-made compost and planted the trees. Then, while digging a hole for the next one, I hit hardpan. I got out a post hole digger and chipped my way through the hardpan to ensure the tree's roots would have a path to the subsoil under the hardpan.

Winters are damp. Summers are hot and dry. I flood irrigate weekly starting in the May timeframe. I have been using 'mulch mats' made from recycled rubber tires to supress grass and weeds. But those mats are only 18" radius.

This past summer I made sure to feed the trees with Zamzow's Thrive and the trees responded with growth. Same for the gnarly little oaks. I have also fed the trees with compost, and that seems to help, too. All of this runs counter to what I've otherwise heard; don't fertilize trees.

I have seen that when I fertilize my mature trees, they grow more foliage and small branches. I'm going to stop feeding the mature spruce, blue pines, and doug fir, but continue feeding the 25' maple, sunburst locust, and the big oak because they seem to be healthier for it.

It's been hit-or miss with nurturing the trees. I'm going by guess and by golly, so I thought I'd throw out the question here because there are so many very knowledgeable people here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tree fertilizer

Any future plantings should not have amendments mixed into planting hole backfill. This practice can actually kill new plantings.

Try sampling your soil and having it tested, seeing if that will guide you in your fertilization. Idaho Cooperative Extension may be able to help you with this.

"Try sampling your soil and having it tested..."

Thanks for the response.

Right. I forgot to add about the soil analysis. pH 7.8, low N, low P, adequate K, low levels of OM. That's off the top of my head. I suppose I could apply some triple-superphosphate around the trees to help with that. I can also apply some sulfur.

I'd heard about the compost causing voids under tree balls and have stopped putting any under trees and just use it to amend the soil near the surface.

i am of the opinion that trees.. shrubs.. and conifers

simply NEVER NEED FOOD ....

unless as noted.. a soil test shows something way out of whack ...

and i dont think they need all that much nitro ... but would defer of others suggested otherwise ...

i usually buy more plants.. rather than waste money on fert ...

good luck

ken

Trees and shrubs are the same as herbaceous plants out at the growing tips. And there can be a lot more plant body there to support. Either a soil has what a particular kind needs or it does not.

Be very careful with triple super-phosphate.

Voids under root-balls are not the problem with amending of planting hole back-fill, you can have air pockets without amendments as well.

For links to discussion of phosphorus, soil amendments and various other such topics...

Here is a link that might be useful: Horticultural Myths

Ponderosa, an excellent tree!
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My running theory: if nearby uninhabited areas look like this, then the soil benefits from improvement.

If it looks like this, the soil should be ok.

The main factor determining the difference in tree cover between the shot with the junipers and the last one is liable to be annual precipitation levels. Since the junipers are so few on the one site, any other occurrence that severely restricts tree growth could be involved as well.

Bboy's comments notwithstanding, the second pic with all the Picea could be of a riverine area. Sluice could clear that up. I am lead to believe that Picea pungens, while obviously endemic to the Rocky Mts. makes its best growth along stream banks, etc. This is oversimplifying, but to make a point.

Sluice, your contributions to these sorts of discussions are much appreciated for the contest they deliver! And at the same time, Bboy could be exactly right, what with the prevalence of moister upslope areas and drier rain shadows in mountain country.

Even though I did plant one hundred Pinus ponderosa on my land, these will ultimately be a small fraction of the total coniferous biota present there. But I just had to get some of those trunks in the scene!

+oM

Yep, the second pic is a riverine (nice word!) area, and first pic is a few miles away on a plateau. Keep on planting!

Here are my 6 or 7 year old trees.

Good pics. In the first one, the mulch mat looks like it is depressed towards the trunk as in, the tree was planted too deeply. But that tree still appears healthy so I'd not mess with trying to replant it. All the trees, in fact, have a generally good appearance. Foliage color is good, and growth rate, while not anything we'd call rapid, still falls within normal range.

By far the number one thing I would do would be to expand the area free of turf around each tree. Turf is really a tough competitor for young trees. You could kill off another foot-wide strip around each one with glyphosate-style herbicide (Roundup) and then mulch. If you're not comfortable with the herbicide, you could just mulch over the top of the (Mowed) turf and rely on that to at least kill off some of the grass. Smothering with several layers of cardboard or newspaper really does work too, and then the mulch can go right over this rotting stuff. Woodchips or bark make perfectly acceptable material for mulching, and no other practice comes close in terms of cost/benefit ratio.

Other than that, I really see no other problems. Very moderate nitrogen fertilization could be done, but if it were me, I'd wait until the expansion of the mulch rings was already in place for a while. In other words, fertilize trees that are already happy with their situation.

As far as the rubber mulch mats, it is possible they could just be left in place and mulched over and around. Don't really see why not, though I've never used them.

+oM

Thank you for the advice. Who knew that trees needed so much care to make them grow well?

I'm going to move the rubber mulch mats to other, little trees that need them more and replace them with landscape fabric with compost underneath, and wood chips over them.

they look fine to me .... happy happy ... the leader growth last spring looks spot on ...

but.. counting whorls... i dont really count 6 or 7 whorls .... i see them as 3 to 4 years old .... only meaning.. they are still babes ...

first pic. ... what is that.. 12 to 18 inches growth on the leader???? expect that much if not more next spring.. and one foot on the branches .... in 2 seasons.. they will look like they doubled in size ...

i agree on getting the grass out 2 or 3 feet from the trunk .......

ken

IG, I would recommend not using "landscape fabric" ever, but in particular, in a case where you are going to place an organic material over it. Woodchips break down. Dust and dirt settles in among them. In a surprisingly short time, they become a suitable seedbed for weed seeds to start growing. Other tough perennial weeds, like quack grass and dandelions, will simply grow halfway under the fabric, and halfway on top. Very hard to remove. Just mulch, and if you really want to do yourself a favor, get used to spraying glyphosate-style herbicides, like Roundup, or any of its generic equivalents. You will come to wonder how you managed before! I've been at this sort of thing since the mid 1970's. I would NEVER use landscape fabric by my own choice. It is useless.

+oM

Wisconsitom, so the grass and weeds absorb the roundup and it doesn't get absorbed by the tree? Do you pull the weeds and grass after the application? No risk to the tree?
Barb

Hi Barb. As with any pesticide, the first step is to read the label. But yes, the green parts of the target vegetation absorb the chemical. This is then translocated throughout, including the roots, resulting in death. Some beginners, not bothering to read the directions, don't realize that in order for this chemical to do this, it takes time, so they resort to other, unnecessary measures instead of just waiting the 5 to 10 days that it may take to kill the whole plant.

As long as the person doing the application is careful to not get any of the spray on a green part of their landscape plant, be a it a petunia or a pine tree, no harm will befall that plant. Trust me on this...I must have sprayed several thousand gallons of this type of stuff by now!

No need to pull the weeds/grass after they die. They will just wither away.

Please pardon any note of stridency in my post above. Sometimes, having said many of the same things perhaps too many times, I get a little carried away! ;^)

+oM

Thanks for clarifying, Tom. I've always been leery of Roundup but over the summer we had some Canadian thistle move in to an area I planted RMJ seedlings in last spring. I'll have to deal with them this coming spring and spraying will be much easier than digging. I appreciate the tip.
Happy Holidays, everybody!
Barb