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Just Pining Away!

   Written by on May 12, 2014 at 7:52 am

Don’t you just love the smell of fresh pine bark mulch? And it makes your garden look so neat and tidy, all raked up into perfect circles around the shrubs and flowers.

logo - a walkHaving no way to transport a large load of pine bark mulch and too tight to buy bags and bags and bags of it, I have been raking and moving pine needles from the back yard to wherever they’re needed to add definition to the landscape.

Of course, there are other advantages to using pine straw as mulch. First of all, it prevents soil erosion around your plants. It is much more dependable than other mulches as it will stand up to rain and wind without washing away. The needles just seem to lock together and hold their ground, so to speak. That falling rain, however, is not absorbed by the pine straw. The loose configuration around plants will not become water logged or contribute to root rot and other diseases. It allows air, water and fertilizer to reach the plant roots.

When applied in sufficient depth, pine straw will choke out weeds, whereas bark mulch may contain weed seeds which will germinate and grow right around the plant you’re mulching. Additionally, when there is pine straw mulch around the base of trees, you don’t have to use a weed-eater to cut down unwanted growth, thereby eliminating the danger of bark damage from the machine.

A three-inch layer of pine straw is good to start with. It will settle to about an inch-and-a- half, and because it breaks down slowly, it will continue to perform for the entire season. Next spring replenish your mulch with another layer of straw. As I have raked down to the soil under the big pine tree in the back yard, I have found the blackest natural compost from the straw that was not raked up there for three or four years.

Besides the obvious plants that prefer acidic soil like that created by pine straw, gardenias, rhododendrons, and hydrangeas will benefit from a good layer of mulch. (We all know azaleas love it.) Hydrangea blooms will be all shades of blue when pine straw is added to their diet. Some of the little guys like it too: lily of the valley, dianthus, yarrow, iris and hostas are big fans of pine straw.

As with anything in life, there are disadvantages. In dry weather pine straw can become a fire hazard. Be careful where you use it; keep it away from your house and other structures. Pine straw is a favorite home for burrowing rodents and I don’t need to say any more about that except that you should check around your plants every once in a while to make sure there are no burrows dug underneath. Pine straw naturally contains dust and mold (it’s just the nature of all varieties of pine), so you might need to wear a mask when handling it. And last but not least, keep pine needles swept off sidewalks and other hard flat surfaces. They can be a bit roly-poly when stepped on.

All in all, I like my pine straw mulch. It does exactly the same job as the heavy, expensive bags of bark mulch and looks almost as good. Best of all, it’s free.

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