My Irislove to have them mixed into the soil around them.


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"Salty Thumb" wrote in message
...
animaux wrote in
:

On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 09:03:23 -0500, "Bill Donovan"
opined:

Are pine needles (ground up with a lawn mower) good for compost?

Thanks

Bill Donovan


They are excellent. I collect pine needles from any neighbors who
have conifers which shed. We don't have all that many in Austin. I
will sometimes drive to the piney areas near Bastrop (an hour or more
drive) just to collect pine needles.


Probably if you age them enough and mix them with other things, you will
be okay, but for the record:

http://www.alumni.ca/~wilmota/
"... This indicates that the chemical compounds could theoretically be
extracted from the pine needles and used on unwanted grass and weeds as a
natural herbicide. In order to do this, pine needle composition was
researched, and it was discovered that pine needles contain polyphenols
and monoterpenes, both of which have been connected with the inhibition
of the growth of some plants. Fresh pine needles were then broken down
and the compounds extracted with either ethyl acetate or water, and
tested on dandelions and grass. Isopropanol was added to the ethyl
acetate extracts, as they were not of appropriate consistency to spray on
plants. Several different concentrations of each extract, a 5:1 water to
isopropanol blank solution as well as a synthetic herbicide were tested
for comparison. Grass and dandelion seeds were tested with the same
concentrations and conditions to see if these compounds would inhibit
germination. " SOME PLANTS


I also found that walnut leaves have inhibitors too, according to he
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/c...mposttext.html

Now I've never composted pine needles myself, and I'm just reporting this
in case someone has used pine compost and wondered why all their plants
died.

-- ST


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