In article , "Marilyn"
wrote:

Hi
Is black mulch...."ground pallots" bad to use?
TIA,
Marilyn

Ground up pallets is a wood waste product (primarily hardwood) frequently
used as a commercial compost ingredient, no different than if you mixed
some woodshavings in your home compost. Ground up pallets are also used in
manufacturing cheap paper, & mixed with recycled milkbottle plastic for
that ugly-ass "Plastic Lumber" product. Sawdust designated "ground pallet"
is not just pallets of course; it can include all mill waste, pulverized
trees that were not useful to make lumber, or any wood-waste that was
never painted or never chemically treated (in theory at least).

There's nothing wrong with it, but it would not have much nutrient value
if not composted with other things. I never heard of it as a BLACK mulch
product per se, but it SOUNDS like that would just be sawdust dyed black.
Unless it was just awfully cheap, like fully composted steer manure is way
cheap, I'd stick to steer compost, which looks like rich black loam when
used as a top-coating but is inert until mixed into soil, so it suppresses
germination of weeds. If black-dyed uncomposted sawdust were cheaper, & if
I could find out what they usedto dye it with, I'd consider such a
product. Some kinds of plants such as huckleberries & bunchberries really
require a lot of rotting wood in their soil to do well because rotting
wood dramatically increases the percentage of beneficial fungus in the
soil, so I can imagine a garden that would benefit from uncomposted
sawdust mixed in it or as a topcoating.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/