Does grass affect trees? We ran an experiment.

Thanks for running that experiment!
I just planted 12 varieties of willow on my homestead here in Kentucky USA. I cardboarded and wood chipped the entire lot of 60 sticks.

Wow, what a difference! Just shows that it is worth the extra effort if you have a mulch a available. Thanks for sharing

Incredible! I had been wondering about this and your video popped up. Very helpful.

I have found a lot of failures from planting into long grass have been down to voles ring barking at ground level. Mulch does make a massive difference but my initial use of hay or straw made perfect vole habitat! They don’t seem to like living wood chip or horse manure shavings, so all my trees get that now. Planting long willow rods, as opposed to the 1ft/2ft cuttings also seems to get them off to a better start