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PostPosted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:00 pm 
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Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:52 pm
Posts: 3
Location: Coppell,TEXAS
We just purchased a house in Dallas on close to an acre size lot. The back half is full of pecan trees & poison oak!! Hence the questions:
1. What is the best way to kill that pesky stuff? The back hasn't been touched in 7 years, so there is nothing to salvage with respect to grass, landscaping etc. (i.e., killing everything but the trees is ok)
2. There is some sunlight, but it is limited. What is my best option with respect to grass growing? I see where there are some new variations of grass that only need 1 hour of sunlight to grow - is that true?

This is a play are for the kids so my requirements are pretty simple: get rid of poison oak & find some kind of coverage.
Thanks!


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:49 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:45 pm
Posts: 2884
Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
If goats are an option, rent one for a day or two. They love to eat poison oak. They will eat it to the ground, from which it will continually resprout. But at least when it is down at the ground, you can manage it yourself from there. Continually cutting new sprouts off will eventually kill it. Or you could spray new sprouts with vinegar to top the plant off. But eventually it will die. If goats are not an option, you may want to hire someone to take it out. Another alternative is to bring in a landscaper with a tractor and box blade to regrade the area. The box blade will scrape everything off the surface but the trees. They also come with ripper tines to pull roots out, so you can probably get rid of the poison oak, all the weeds, all the existing turf, and leave yourself a perfectly smooth surface to lay new St Augustine sod.

I don't know of any grass that will thrive as a play yard on 1 hour of direct light. If you trim the pecans upward, I've seen St Augustine thrive under them. But with children playing, they suffer some. Keep the grass mowed as high as possible and you'll have a shot. Have you read the messages at the top of this list? They will help with general care.

There is another problem with pecan trees and grass or other ground cover. When the pecans fall, they fall into the ground cover or grass making them hard to find. St Augustine will work okay but anthing like ivy or jasmine will pretty much guarantee you more pecan trees in the spring as the nuts sprout.

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