I'm curious and I can't figure out a scientific explanation for this, and perhaps how I can apply this perhaps in other areas of
gardening.
We had some neglected
apple trees pruned about 2 months ago, it was pretty intensive as they hadn't been pruned in about 7 years.
I noticed recently that the grass surrounding the piles of branches (varying in size from rotten logs to fresher branches sunlight) is growing thicker and taller than the rest of the grass.
I thought maybe this is sort of like an above ground
hugelkultur affect, but at this stage, the prunings would be dying off and therefore taking in nitrogen, is this correct? So wouldn't the grass around it actually be stunted, or no?