Keep washing off the top and watering the soil.

I would never spray around the trees and shrubs in my yard, That is what string trimmers and mulch is for.

Spray can go in places that you don't want it and if nothing else you have a lot of time planting and caring for your yard you don't want to loose..

Beside the rings of dead grass are UGLY.

As said wash down with copious amounts of water if you do decide to spray and need to get it off the plants and shrubs. So since you are diluting and washing away the spray and it will not be concentrated enough to do what you wanted Why spray in the first place.

Thanks for the advice. I will keep washing it down and watering. @krnuttle I have over 20 trees and I spray them because the nursery where I got them told me to spray in order to keep competing grass and weeds away from it for moisture purposes. I had planned on putting mulch down afterwards.

The correct way to get rid of the grass around plants is with a shovel.

the damage is done.. i really dont see what continued washing will do ... just be patient ...

meanwhile.. take your clean empty tank and a lawnchair to the driveway ... fill with water ... and learn how to adjust tank pressure and nozzle spray ... including trigger pressure .. until you can spray droplets you can see ...

gravity dictates that droplets fall to the ground.. as compared to a high pressure mist.. which can blow in the wind ...

put a target on the driveway ... and try applying droplets around say.. a coffee can ... without hitting it ..

another variable is the direction of the head itself .. nearly put it on the can.. and spray away from it ....

and the most important thing ... never try to be precise and compete ... just shoot for 80% ... and a week later ... and it starts yellowing ... go after the remainder ... its something to do with your concentration level ... or crikey.. sneezing.. or a bee bothering you .. at which point.. just turn it off.. drop it all .. lol.. and step away to deal with such ...

i would not dig around a new babe.. fearing i would cut new roots.. and slow down establishment ...

that said.. i would have probably stared by removing a 3 foot circle.. planted the tree.. and then mulched.. avoiding the need to spray this close.. but i learned that lesson doing what you did ... live and learn ...

ken

I should have been a bit more clear on my post, but I didn't spray these from a tank sprayer. Instead, I put it in a small spray bottle and got down on my hands and knees to spray. These trees were seedlings when I planted them and now after 6 years are now between 5-6 feet tall. When I planted them as seedlings, I dug out the recommended feet around it, but obviously they've gotten wider since then.

I don't spray them every year for fear that something like this will happen. That's why I chose to get down low to spray. But I'm positive I didn't get any up on the branches which is a reason why I don't understand the browning. I can only think that maybe there was a small suckling that was coming out of the ground where I sprayed.

what is a small suckling ?

and what is with the black bugs

if you sprayed like you said , no chance of damage like this

maybe another reason , like the pigs you talk about

ron

If by suckling you mean a root sucker spruce won’t have those.

tj

Spray can drift, even from a very small, closely directed spray bottle. This is the entire point behind social distancing and Coivd 19!! All you need is a slight breeze when you are spraying and those droplets could end up anywhere.