"Chookie" wrote in message
news:ehrebeniuk-D41C4B.21334728032008@news...
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/

I have a layer of pine needles throughout most of my garden. Because they
are on the surface they shade the soil. No plants in my garden have died as
a result of acidity in fact most are healthy and without fertiliser too. If
you look under the needles the soil is moist and a nice layer of humus is
forming whereas exposed sections in the garden are dry 30cm's down. The weed
count is way down also where exposed soil has weeds everywhere.

If worried about acidity add some dolomite. Don't underrate pine needles
they look better in the garden than woodchips. In the USA they dye
pineneedles all sorts of colours so people can use them in the garden.

I also like the pine needles as I can go to one of the forests here fill up
6 x 100 litre tree bags and that will last me more than 9 months before a
top up is needed. It only costs me fuel and my time, usually I do it when I
am coming back from somewhere.

Most of my trips involve stop offs to gather something in season at
abandoned sites. Figs, lemons and olives have been my most recent.

Pine chips should be ok if on the surface. Try not to dig them into the soil
as they will rob whatever nitrogen is there. I prefer not to use them as
they tend to be blown around while breaking down.

Cheers

Richard