Expert: Jim Hyland - 7/11/2007

Question
My question is my husband and I have two really tall pine trees in our front yard.  We trimmed both of them up, one above the house, so we can add on a front porch, and the other about seven feet up.  I really would like to put red landscape rock under them, but am scared that it is going to be really hard to clean up the needles as they fall into the rock.  I guess my question is, is it hard to clean up the needles once you have rock down?

Answer
I would not use landscape rocks--if the depth is more than 4 inches then the weight of the rocks can damage the tree, weeds will grow up between the rocks, if you put landscape fabric down this will damage the tree. the area next to the tree trunk can not stand more than 1-2 inches of mulch. And yes the needles will get in the rocks. I would use pine needles as the mulch around the pines. You can put a landscape boarder around the tree and put the straw inside the boarder.