Conifer Pine Mulch

 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

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.

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.

 
pines notoriously prevent anything else from growing near them, so yeah.
however, i'm personally not sure if it's just the acidity of the dropped
leaves, or if only the living trees are able to have this effect. (or
perhaps both).

having said that, acid-lovers such as strawberries (in particular) & other
berries such as blueberries apparently benefit from pine leaf mulch. i've
just mulched my strawberries with old pine needles but that was just the
other day, so nothing to report yet ;-)

if i were you, i'd have the pruner mulch all the trimmings into a pile,
leave it for a while, & then use it to mulch something acid-loving about the
garden. if you don't already have a strawberry patch, crowns will be
available for sale in the winter & you can put them in & mulch them with
your by-then-somewhat-aged conifer mulchings!

not that i am bugging you to have a strawberry patch, but they're a
good-looking, low-maintenance, productive ground-cover, will grow seemingly
anywhere, and soil acidity is never a problem. ;-)

failing that, i should think it would be perfectly all right to distribute
the (aged) mulch thinly all about the garden after you've left it for some
time, just avoiding anything you know really likes alkaline conditions, just
in case.

kylie

 
I don't do it annually. Just every 3 years or so. Its going to cost me about
$500 to do 10+ trees and I get about 4m of mulch. So its not too bad. Plus
they provide a good wind breaker and privacy protector.

 
  The issue is that conifers have waxy coatings on their

You are discussing two different things.  Chookie didn't mention that plants
died of acidity but from thirst from a heavy layer of needles.  I agree with
her.  Pine needles are water repellant in large quantities and are a pain in
the bum when they do that.

Your idea of using pine mulch is a different matter.  I too use pine needles
if I can't get anything else and find then OK but not as good as other
things.  and you identified the best things about them.  They are free and
do look quite good.

If

 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.