Brittney,

I use grass clippings for my fruit trees and it works fine. All natural and water conservation also.

Tony

Thanks Tony!

It works for many things (great in veg gardens), but ultimately when the trees come into bearing you may need to stay away from such an nitrogen rich mulch, depending on your soil. Grass clippings really invigorate plants and a bearing fruit tree functions best at a state of moderate vigor.

If you pile too much fresh clippings at once it can also be suffocating if it starts to rot anaerobically. If it stinks, this is the case.

And keep it away from the trunk.

Grass can become matted and compacted to the point that it will actually shed water instead of letting it soak through to the ground. Ideally you would use something more like chipped wood or even straw. As stated grass clippings are also high in nitrogen which may cause excess vegetative growth and my also cause your young trees to not harden off quickly enough in the fall and potentially winterkill, depending on your climate.

Grass clippings high in nitrogen? I very much doubt it. Quite on the contrary. You need to add some form of nitrogen (organic or inorganic) to compost it well. Throw some fertilizer under the trees first than cover with several sheets of newspaper and then put your grass clippings on top of it. This should work fine. Tested.

Harbin, almost any green plant tissue is high in nitrogen- just check this link- I have seen organic fertilizers with a lower N content than grass clippings (about 4%).

Here is a link that might be useful: N content of grass clippings

Even though it has nitrogen in it, it will get eaten up by the micro organisms that break it down. Plus more nitrogen that's in the soil. It works good for starting a compost pile up. Once that pile is black and rotted and no more heat coming off it then its good to use.

I used to pile grass clipping on my orange tree and vegetables every two weeks. Best garden I ever had. My tree was mature so I placed the clippings at the outer part of the tree right before the leaf ended. Never near the trunk because orange trees feed outside. I put one inch every two weeks and it was compost by the next time I came back. Half inch of grass every two weeks is great. Once per year I would do a layer of manure and every winter I used a thick bark mulch. In summer trees need nitrogen, grass and leave are great

Grass clippings may be fine. Depends on what chemicals are used on the lawn.

Lay out a tarp in your driveway, spread your grass clippings on it and let them dry in the sun for an afternoon. They dehydrate very quickly and when piled up will be very fluffy. Makes for fantastic mulch in your garden beds and around trees. You will not have the problems fresh cut grass can have such as; too hot from decomposition, matted, or becoming a giant gelatenous mess. However, if you are growing corn, fresh cut grass works great in between the rows.

I used as mulch on sterile sands the plentiful grass clippings from a state agency HQ lawn. To my chagrin I got a lot of otherwise unexplained stress and decline on fruit plants. I think it is the broad-leaf herbicide carryover problem. Beware of origin!

To "Gonebananas" point - I've thought about grabbing the bags of grass-clippings from neighbors, but I decided against it due to the mystery-herbicide/pesticide issue. I use no chemicals on my lawn (and no, it's not a pretty lawn, but I keep it for the kids/dogs who very much enjoy it) so I know the clippings are clean.

it is best to compost it first

grass (fresh) can and does mat into a giant plug of garbage.

the nitrogen load can be an issue (Harbin you're part right, but when do you put a half-pound of fertilizer on the ground? one can easily add that much or more dried weight grass, so the excess N2 can be an issue....

that said, if you put it on green and wet my main issue has been that it can form this giant, stinky plug nothing else gets past--as mentioned, rain sloughs off it. Nothing grows through it, and things in the middle can be over-fed or suffocated by it.

Grass can mulch, but too much can be a disaster. Drying it is the best solution I've seen thus far.