Hi,

Its been over 6 months since i posted about my pine mulch problem so I
thought I'd share whats happened since I used the mulch.

Backdrop: I have a dozen conifer pine trees - had them pruned back and
mulched the residue.

There was a fair bit of the mulch and I couldn't just store it in one
location in my garden.

The amount could be roughly about 10 - 20 large compost bins full. And i
only have 2.

So what I did was I stored what I could in my 2 bins. Then I spread it
around in my garden as best as I could.

The mulch seem to turn into something more useful if its placed into open
piles and turned around every month or so.

The ones in the compost bin looked like they turned kind of sour like -
probably due to a lack of water. I travel a fair bit sometimes and don't get
enough time to do necessary stuff in the garden. So I emptied it out - and
after a very short while - it smelt better - that humus pleasant earthly
kind of smell.

The other stuff which I spread around the garden also seemed to turn up
quite nicely too. No plants died but I was careful not to spread it too
thickly. In the areas where i did spread it thickly, the yellow daisy
marguirites loved it.

Now comes the second stage - where I have to take the pine mulch in the
storage areas to the rest of the garden. Great time to do it too - as I'm
getting a fair bit of weeds/ grass runners in the flower beds.










"YMC" wrote in message news:...
"Luke" blah@blah wrote in message
...
I think it's more a case where the pine mulch will make the soil more
acidic, whereas a rose prefers a fairly neutral soil around PH 6.5.
Probably composting it is the better idea as I hate seeing mulch go to
waste.

Thanks for that. I think the old guy just wanted to discourage me and take
the mulch away. His quote didn't involve leaving the mulch behind (because
he claimed it was useless).

Another tree cutter suggested putting the mulch onto one section of the
garden which was hidden and let it sit for 4 weeks or so. I've got him to
do the job as he was more helpful and friendly.

I'll probably keep the bulk of the mulch in that section of the garden for
3 - 12 months or so and put a bit of blood and bone and seaweed mix to
hurry up the rotting process.

Thanks all for the advice.

"YMC" wrote in message
u...
Hi,

Its been over 6 months since i posted about my pine mulch problem so I
thought I'd share whats happened since I used the mulch.

Backdrop: I have a dozen conifer pine trees - had them pruned back and
mulched the residue.

There was a fair bit of the mulch and I couldn't just store it in one
location in my garden.

The amount could be roughly about 10 - 20 large compost bins full. And i
only have 2.

So what I did was I stored what I could in my 2 bins. Then I spread it
around in my garden as best as I could.

The mulch seem to turn into something more useful if its placed into open
piles and turned around every month or so.

The ones in the compost bin looked like they turned kind of sour like -
probably due to a lack of water. I travel a fair bit sometimes and don't
get enough time to do necessary stuff in the garden. So I emptied it out -
and after a very short while - it smelt better - that humus pleasant
earthly kind of smell.

The other stuff which I spread around the garden also seemed to turn up
quite nicely too. No plants died but I was careful not to spread it too
thickly. In the areas where i did spread it thickly, the yellow daisy
marguirites loved it.

Now comes the second stage - where I have to take the pine mulch in the
storage areas to the rest of the garden. Great time to do it too - as I'm
getting a fair bit of weeds/ grass runners in the flower beds.

Thankyou YMC, your research is appreciated!
I have a rather large conifer shedding a humungus amount of pine needles and
was worried about using them as mulch. I think I shall use them in the
garden beds as a weed retardant.
It all helps!

Linda (Perth WA) :-)

"Linda" wrote in message
news:48ed60de$0$8879$c30e37c6@lon-

Thankyou YMC, your research is appreciated!
I have a rather large conifer shedding a humungus amount of pine needles
and was worried about using them as mulch. I think I shall use them in the
garden beds as a weed retardant.
It all helps!

Linda (Perth WA) :-)

Sure! No worries. I think on mature plants- the pine needles are ok and safe
to use. If used sparingly. However, on my 5+ year old yellow marguites
daises - they seemed to love plenty of the stuff.

On the roses cuts and young plants.... it seems to have a negative reaction.
But it could be that they were not doing well, anyway - being exposed to
some hot sun.

Well, best to experiment and see. What's good for my garden in Victoria may
not work so well for you in Perth - and vice versa too!

Ideally of course, I'd have stored the entire lot of fresh pine mulch in a
separate section of the garden and kept it down for 2 years to let it break
down. But I couldn't do that.