Also I have seen two possible replacements for pine bark and I ask your opinion please. One is coco chips, and the other is hydration, which is expensive but looks like it would never need to be replaced.

I picked up a 40-50lb bag of "forest pine bark mulch" at Lowes for $6. It is not composted, and you have to break it down to proper size. I just filled a five gal bucket halfway with pine bark and went at it with a garden fork, worked ok, little time consuming, not to bad though.. Next to the pine mulch they have pine nuggedts, which are really big, and they have pine fines, which seem perfect. Next time im going to get the pine fines from lowes, they seems bigger than fines, perfect for 511. Check out lowes, home depot didnt have anything over here.

Thank you, I'll check them out.

Big box stores in different regions of the country will use different suppliers for mulch and there is no consistency, even in the same stores from year to year. I found some great stuff at my local Lowes last year, but they have something else this year, or at least it's in a different bag. Don't buy pine bark without looking at it. There are always broken bags you can look through. First look for something that says "pine bark mulch". Stay away from anything that says "shredded", "cypress", or is dyed. You're looking for flat chips of bark with no white wood. The bags are kept outside so they're always wet, but that's a plus because the bark is already composting inside the bag. A two cubic foot bag should cost around $3.15 depending where you live. Get a couple of feet of 1/2 inch hardware cloth while you're there to sift the bark. I made a rectangular frame out of scrap 2X2's I had laying around and it made the sifting job a lot easier. I get about 10 gallons of screened bark from a 2 cf bag. I mix up a trash can full of 5-1-1 at a time.

This post was edited by Beach_bums on Sat, Feb 15, 14 at 12:41

Lucille,

I wish I could help answer your question but as Beach Bums noted above, the nation-wide big box stores here in the US (Lowes, Home Depot, Menards, etc.) all use different suppliers for pine bark, depending on what region of the country you live in. So when it comes to garden materials, Lowes in the Seattle area will typically sell different products and brands than Lowes in Detroit, Miami, St. Louis, or Dallas.

Typically, for low-cost garden products like gravel, sand, bark, etc. the big box stores will use local or regional providers in order to keep shipping costs as low as possible. As far as I know, Scotts and Miracle Gro fertilizers and soil products are generally available nation-wide but nearly everything else is sold regionally. This is unfortunate since many GW members have found great deals on pine bark at their local big box stores and even posted photos of specific bags of mulch, but more often than not those brands are only available within their local area or region.

TYG

Am trying an experiment that doesn't involve bagged bark, thanks to all who answered.