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mulch

pine needle mulch?

Posts: 69

Location: Yakima County, E WA

posted 11 years ago

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One of my neighbors has a front yard completely covered in pine needles and I'm thinking of asking them if I could borrow all of them.
Is there any complications to using pine needle mulch?
My soil is slightly on the alkaline side by itself.

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Jonathan Davis

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Location: North Central Ohio

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posted 11 years ago

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I have 3 very large pine trees in the back portion of my yard and have been using pine needles and cones as mulch for my magnolias, azaleas, and rhododendrons. I also use needles and cones for mulching my blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. Once those things are completed, I gather and save the rest of the cones and needles in an opentop container an allow them to dry out in my garage. I use them to start outdoor patio fires. Throw some dried needles and cones into the bottom of a fire pit with wood on top and you can usually get the fire going with a match! You can also put needles into the compost bin, as long as you don't get too crazy with the ratios.

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Thomas warren

Posts: 69

Location: Yakima County, E WA

posted 11 years ago

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What kind of ratio would you use?

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Bryant RedHawk

gardener

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Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

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posted 11 years ago

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Hau, Thomas, you mention your soil is slightly alkaline, do you know what the pH is at this time?

Most plants do very well in a pH of 6.5 + or - .2 If your current pH is within this range (which is slightly alkaline) then the addition of pine needles may tip it closer to or over 7.0 (neutral soil pH).

Composting pine needles with manures and greens could be a great way to use them, again it will depend on pH. One way to use a lot of them, and not have big worries about garden soil pH is to use them for pathways
as already mentioned, any acid loving plantings will benefit from a mulching of pine needles.

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Alex Ames

Posts: 415

Location: Georgia

posted 11 years ago

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I live in a pine forest basically and I worried about using the pine needles.
They have worked very well in my flower beds and the vegetable garden.
Walter Reeves "the Georgia Gardener" says they are not acidic as they break
down. His website would have info on it.

The soil I started with was so bad I figured there was no point in testing it.
At this point, a few years in, it is beginning to come along and I wonder how
it would test. I am trying to follow Paul's recommendation to not import
amendments. I don't generate enough leaves of deciduous trees to mulch
my whole vegetable garden. So pine needles come in handy.

Ronnie Ugulano

Posts: 94

Location: Zone 9, CA

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posted 11 years ago

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We have 2 huge 60+ year old deodar trees that constantly drop needles. We decided to cover all bare areas with pine needles, and it works out pretty well. To do the original cover, we had to grab the needles from the guy down the block that had a deodar tree of his own, but now the trees keep up with never ending replacements.

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Tim Kivi

pollinator

Posts: 365

posted 6 years ago

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I dug lots of pine needles I to my soil when I started a new garden bed. When I dug it up a few months later the pine needles had completely decomposed, and the plants are doing well in it. They seem to be great stuff, and mulching will help it stay mulched for a while as they don’t break down fast.

I’m thinking of mulching heavily every spring, then in autumn digging it all into the ground as that’s when my garden kicks off growing like crazy (lots of rain and no snow where I live).

Abe Coley

pollinator

Posts: 403

Location: Missoula, MT

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posted 6 years ago

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The thing I like about using pine needles as mulch is that they sort of lock together to form a mat which little weeds have trouble growing through.

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Tim Kivi

pollinator

Posts: 365

posted 6 years ago

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With pine needles you also don’t need to worry about them spoiling the soil if they get dug in like you do with wood chips. Worms love it.

All the dense leafy vegetables and weeds I grow in winter turn quite useless in spring as they bolt to seed without leaves to eat. So I now dig the whole plants into the soil to add organic waste. This year I’ll add heaps of pine needles too to add brown waste to the mix. My soil’s dense clay so I need to add so many organic additions to turn it into loam.

Marco Banks

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Location: Los Angeles, CA

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posted 6 years ago

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Abe Coley wrote:The thing I like about using pine needles as mulch is that they sort of lock together to form a mat which little weeds have trouble growing through.

^ This ^.

They don't blow around and tend to stay put on a a hillside, whereas wood chips tend to move down the hill over time. And I love the nutty brown color of a uniform layer of pine straw.
--
There is no truth to the idea that pine needles acidify the soil. You need decades and decades of pine trees dropping needles and sap and root exudates into the soil before you'd see the PH move even a little bit. If your soil has any measure of clay in it (which most people have some clay), it'll already be a bit on the alkaline side anyway.

But they do break down quickly, so as a weed barrier, you need to continually refresh the mulch or you'll see those weeds popping up after 6 months.

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Timothy Norton

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Location: Upstate New York, Zone 5b, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall

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posted 1 week ago

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The last time I was visiting family down around the Alabama-Georgia border, I noticed that a lot of homeowners were utilizing pine needles as mulch. There were landscaping trucks filled with what looked like rolls of pine needles installing the mulch for homes and businesses.

Here in New York, you don't see that but there is plenty of pine needles around but you don't see it being 'professionally' used.

Anybody have insight on this adoption of pine needle mulch? Does anyone use it?

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Doug McEvers

Posts: 67

posted 1 week ago

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I believe the Raised Garden Blend has 20% pine needles, they call it mulch fines. The RGB is a good material for garden improvement, the pine needles probably keep pH somewhat neutral or slightly acidic depending on the rest of the blend.

https://www.kernlandscaping.com/soil

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

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Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 1 week ago

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Timothy Norton wrote:The last time I was visiting family down around the Alabama-Georgia border, I noticed that a lot of homeowners were utilizing pine needles as mulch. There were landscaping trucks filled with what looked like rolls of pine needles installing the mulch for homes and businesses.

How can they be rolls of pine needles?

I'm meaning to make better use of some of my spruce needle drop in mulching my blueberries

I have a good thick coverage in some areas, and I don't think the trees will miss some. I'm hoping it will help keep the blueberry soil aerated and absorbant.

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Timothy Norton

Steward of piddlers

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Location: Upstate New York, Zone 5b, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall

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posted 1 week ago

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Nancy Reading wrote:
How can they be rolls of pine needles?

I'm not sure of HOW they do it, but I did find a picture online that is similar to what I have seen before. There must be some sort of machine utilized to make them into rolls for easier handling.

Robert Ray

gardener

Posts: 3430

Location: Cascades of Oregon

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posted 1 week ago

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When in SC we would buy bales of pine straw (needles) for mulch. Now at the end of winter, time to rake up the ponderosa needles here.
Not available locally at Lowes but at 84.00 a box or 149.00 on Amazon,I am rich.

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Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 12789

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 1 week ago

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Those are long needles, not like my spruce! Literally rolled up like a straw bale - there presumably must be a needle harvesting machine....aha!
They just use fairly standard hay baling machines.

This one makes square bales. Apparently you can make them by hand too (if you need bales that is!).

I wonder what the thermal characteristics of pine straw is? Could be a perennial alternative to straw bale houses perhaps.

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Dennis Barrow

pollinator

Posts: 953

Location: 10 miles NW of Helena Montana

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posted 1 week ago

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Last year I put about a foot depth of pine needles in a section of my garden and planted potatoes in them. They grew well but not as well as right next to them where I grew potatoes in about a foot of straw. I will grow potatoes in pine needles again this year as they are free to me.
I am planning on using pine needles in the walkways in my gardens this year. My property has about 5 acres of ponderosa pines. Lots of needles, many places several inches deep.

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Joao Winckler

Posts: 31

posted 1 week ago

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I use pine needles around my blueberries and they seem to love it. The mat they form is great, barely any weeds get through compared to wood chip. Only downside is they break down slower than I expected so the soil underneath stays quite compacted if you don't loosen it up now and then.

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