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Old 20-03-2012, 06:27 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening
Emery Davis[_3_] Emery Davis[_3_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Oct 2009
Posts: 868
Default Pine mulch, or not.

Hi Steve,

I'm going into the second year of using fresh wood chips (shreddings
really) as mulch. Mine are mixed, there is some pine in it, along with
a lot of lime (Tilia) and hard woods. My experience last year was
extremely positive although some warned it was a bad idea.

It's worth noting that most of my trees are ornamentals (largely maples)
which don't like a lot of nitrogen anyway, but there was certainly very
good fruit crops also last year by and large.

Check out this link:

http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%2...les/index.html

The pdf called "Arborist Wood Chips" addresses many concerns, including
I think both the "acidifying" and "nitrogen leaching" arguments. Though
others will of course disagree (as Jake did) and honestly I don't agree
with everything Dr. Chalker writes either.

-E

On 03/20/2012 03:19 PM, shazzbat wrote:
The tree fellers are busy across the road, at long last cutting down a row
of leylandii which this morning were about 10 feet taller than the houses.
They are shredding the branches into a truck, and I'm sure if I asked them
they'd let me have a load. I'm wondering about their suitability as a mulch
for the fruit bushes on the allotment to keep the weeds down. Anybody done
this, and is there a down side? OK, there's always a down side, what's the
down side here?

Steve