In article ,
"YMC" wrote:

Hi there,

I have a row of conifer pine trees - medium size - dark green leaves. They
are about 6 metres tall and are due for a good prune back.

I believe they are called Castlewellan Gold.

Here's a link to a photo.
http://www.ballarat.net/avalon/cypress.htm

Apparently these are a form of Leyland Cypress, responsible for an outbreak of
'hedge rage' across the UK.

I thought of lopping off the top of the trees- mulching them including the
leaves finely - and then using them as mulch for my rose garden. I'm
allergic to the pine leaves so I'm getting tree pruner to do the job.

You are going to be spending a lot of time and money on the annual pruning of
these 'little' darlings. Perhaps you should have them removed instead?

One old grizzled tree pruner however warned me that using fresh conifer pine
mulch was a very bad idea and will kill the roses or any other plant. He
said the best thing to do is to throw them away. or if I wanted to use them,
to put them in compost bins and wait for 12 months.

Is using conifer mulch for the garden a bad idea? I didn't realize it was
toxic.

Not exactly toxic. The issue is that conifers have waxy coatings on their
leaves, which means that they tend to be water-repellent and to break down
very slowly. So a heavy layer of "needles" might cause your plants to die of
thirst before anything else. The breakdown process also uses up nitrogen,
which your garden plants would prefer to use for growing leaves. I'd compost
them, myself, or if I were trying to kill something I'd put the whole lot
there.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/