I shred all my prunning with Dixie Chopper mower it 60 inch it cuts up to 2 inch limbs to shredes from peaches and pecans. Blackberries you have to remove old canes that bear fruit also shred that up with dixie chopper it uses very heavy blades I have no blade damage from this just get dull like rotary mower blades. Sometimes I cut larger limbs and leaves the firewood pieces when limbs are pile up to high for dixie chopper to get on top I use a rotary mower to lower the pile then finish with DC it mulch them better. The new 74 inch would be great mower for your operation you can pull those wagons of pears with it as well up to 2000 lbs tongue pull. Going down orchard row with ZTR mower is way to take care of weeds around trees you want have to circle the trees to get cut you want. Rotary mower that 100 inch cut good for orchard floor that 40 horsepower take it in slower gear. ZRT mower work well but toy type want those fence row mower are lawnmower with tire to make swing from post and very slow to mow cotton grower use frail mowers on stackes so that work but most are heavy on used market.

treebarb, I've been in love with Abies concolor for decades; have never owned one. I'll go peek at Lowe's. We haven't made a decision yet, family stuff in Florida happened and we just returned home. Do you think the shallow roots would be a problem? We don't want it falling over in the wind and hitting the house (but of course on a 3-foot Lowe's tree we'd not have to worry about that for a while)! The neighbor's trees are not any wind protection. One is at the very front of her house and the other smaller juniper is between our houses. The prevailing winds are straight up the slope much of the time, so whoever's out back is going to have to withstand 50+ up to highest measured at 76 mph. Doesn't happen all the time, of course, but I'd say 20% of the year at least. I just looked up Bosnian pine: "tolerant of severe wind exposure". I like its looks online, and it sounds like the ticket to me. Thanks for your helpfulness. I very much appreciate it.

Pokeweed (Phytolacca) is a creeping perennial that's going to be tough to battle tangled up with tree roots, probably making digging it up impossible. If you keep cutting it down faster than it can grow, you will win eventually. You may want to try smothering the area with cardboard, which will allow water to get to the tree but block the pokeweed from getting the light it needs to survive. It looks like a mulched area anyway, so just cover the cardboard with mulch so you don't have to look at it, and make it heavy enough to suppress the pokeweed. Pull any new sprouts you see right away, while they're easy. As you've seen, once huge roots develop, you've got a battle when it's time for it to go. It will just keep increasing its' spread every year if not killed. A cool-looking plant but not at all well-behaved enough for most people's yards. If it makes you feel any better, it IS a native.

I have used Roundup around the base of many trees and it has never harmed the trees. I would never (again) use a weed barrier like plastic. I believe the rule-of-thumb for mulching around trees is no more than 6" deep around the tree.