Pine needles

Are pine needles good for improving soil? My raised ornamental bed is by a big pine tree and needles are falling in my garden. Good or bad for soil?

Send 'em here if you don't use them. :-)

Pine needles are really good mulch - they don't crust over
and they do improve the soil like any organic material will.
I've gotten them from friends and used them on my rhodies
and azaleas.

Thanks Tammy for your response. I won't worry about them now. I also have those little baby pine cones falling in the bed. I hope they help as well.

I was using them and loved the way they held up. Then someone questioned the terpenes in them. I suppose if you piled them super deeply they might hinder some kinds of vegetative growth...don't really know...still wondering. The experts talk about these things in a scientific manner that leaves total ignorance to me. I prefer anecdotal advice from experienced gardeners.

Anecdote: they really help prevent crust, as they take much longer to decompose (usually, depends on variety) than leaves and such. Year after year application is propably neither good nor necessary. The pine cones will take a very long time to rot down, but there is nothing wrong with that.

I have a friend next to my property that says that she thinks her pine needles was not good for her cannas. Sooo she has about a 20 ft x 20 ft pile of pine needles. She wants me to pick up. Is it worth my time ? John

Heck yes. Compost those babies with a bunch of chicken manure. They will take longer than normal compost, and the process should take care of bad chemical concentrations (allelopaths, etc...) but the rough texture of resultant compost will be wonderful. It really softens soil if composted.

You could also spead it across an area that you want to mulch down and kill weeds for a future project. A whole lot of needles can have a nasty effect on weeds.
Kenton

Oooooo.... I want those pine needles John! Can ya put 'em in a box and mail them
to me. I think they are really nice for mulching beds.

I have never used anything but pine needles (called pine straw around here). In some parts of the country they can cause the soil to become too acitic but not around here. Perhaps it has something to do with the copious amounts of rain we get. I pile a thick layer(8") on everything twice a year.

I have a ton of them too.

They just fall from the tress like manna from Heaven

I wnder about cedars I have no pimes but have 3 cedar about 100 ft high. Have never thought to use the needles for anything.

that's a good question (about the cedars). i always thought nothing much would grow under cedars, but i think i'm wrong.

It is not easy to make grass grow under cedars you need to put a lot of lime down from time to time. I have 3 over 100 ft high. I know that the needles compost. Right now on my garden shed they are pile 3 inches thick in places.

Jamesco: I put a post on here about a commercial drum compost. I went up there and seen it on my way to the Dr last week it is 50 ft long and 10 ft in dia. Holds 50 tons of chicken and turky manure at a time. Will turn out compost in 4 days. My the compost sites web address on it.

Loon, In keeping with the hoiday spirit I beleive you should ship all of them to me so your soil won't be tainted with any impurities. I only offer this during the hoidays as a good will gesture.
Seriously use them and benifit. Merry Christmas

i don't want any grass growing under the cedars, just plants! i will experiment this summer.

HO HO HO HUFFY!!

Thanks for the chuckle.

I guess I won't worry about the needles and baby cones that fall into the flower bed.

I do put grass clippings under the pine trees for mulch (and for a fast place to dump the mower back out at). I figured the extra nitrogen would be good for them plus help hold some moisture in. We had a pretty dry summer this year.

Here in the south pine needles or Pine Straw is big business. Almost every nursery sells it by the bale. In the fall especially, people pile it up around the Azaleas, Rhodis etc. Our clay soil is very acid anyway, so a little more only only adds compost for our acid loving plants. I don't need to buy it because I have enough naturally to rake up from our trees.

I do get the wood chips by the pick up truck load from our county recycling center. I have also had the power Co dump a truckload of "green" chips. This is great for paths in my shade garden, it takes about a year for it to break down, but when it does, the result is wonderful black compost.

I have a lot of Eastern White Pines and I used a few handfuls worked into my soil around some roses to help acidify the soil. The concrete raises the pH by the roses(next to the house) and this helps lower it . Pine needles have lots of good uses.

cuckoo

I agree with Azalea, I have some of it from my longleaf pines and I have bought in bales also. Some of my yard is on a slope and no matter how hard it rains the pine straw stays where I put it. All other mulches would float away.

Pine straw as a mulch: I love the way it looks. The first caveat for newbies is that you cannot use it on a path like you might hardwood mulch chips. There is a place in France where people ski year-round on pine needles. The rain might not move it, but if a person walks on it and there is the slightest shear, watch out!

I don't know if it was the pine straw itself or mold growing on it, but I used pine straw to mulch flower gardens once and I had a severe allergic reaction to it. I was so disappointed. I like the look of it better than any other decorative mulch.