#2 would probably be better utilized as a soil amendment ...

and fresh ones are a great mulch.. if you can get it thick enough to last the season ...

why some peeps rake them up from under the tree is beyond me???

and dont get wound up in any pH arguments ... you will ..... in your lifetime.. never add enough to alter pH ... [and i am talking about NOT under a mature pine ...]

ken

First question: is it safe/wise to use fresh pine needles as mulch?

Sure. Why wouldn't it be? And I agree with ken that the mostly broken down material of #2 is a better soil amendment than mulch. If broken down enough to resemble soil, then not enough substance to act as a good mulch.

There are NO valid pH arguments about pine (or other conifer needles) as a mulch :-)) They simply do not contribute to altering soil pH in any significant manner.

OMG .. i think the earth stopped for a moment..

i think gal agreed with me in toto ...

lol

ken

We used to have a neighbor who always raked up all his pine needles, and he'd laugh when I went over to get them. They're GOLD as mulch. We bought and spread 38 yards of mulch this year, and how I would have loved to have used pine needle mulch instead. I might just order the pallets online when we do it again in 2-3 years. Our local arboretum began mulching with pine needles a few years ago and in addition to the needles being extremely good mulch, the look is stunning.

Just today, I spread out fall leaves from Maples and oaks, maybe some Hickories. I topped it off with Eastern white pine needles, so the wind couldn't blow it away so easily. Getting fall leaves is easy, but the pine needles is not so easy. Spreading the pine needles keeps the fall leaves from blowing away. When I ran out of Pine needles, I had to use some Cypress wood mulch to hold down the leaves. I am almost done with the area mentioned above. I need to find more pine needles though. This area is under a shade tree. I was trying to suppress weeds and hold in moisture.

Pine needles I have used in my yard haven't caused any bad issues.

I could have kicked myself when I 'discovered' how well pine straw worked as a mulch for my berry patches. Almost half of our original northern and western lot line is one solid white pine windbreak. The needles have just accumulated around the trees over the years and it's caused a natural weed barrier and moisture retentive mulch for the trees themselves. I used it for the first time last winter when I moved my strawberry patch into raised beds, and just was too cheap and lazy to go buy straw. LOL. The pine straw was as easy as a rake and wheelbarrow and the mulch was lightweight and the berries wintered over beautifully and were easy to expose the crowns when it was time to let them rip. This year I used it in the veggie garden under my maturing melons and pumpkins. Good results as well. It's going to be a habit now, at least on the food crops. Love it.

I never did get to finish the above job of mulching with fall leaves topped with pine needles. I have lots of collected fall leaves, but still need more pine needles to keep the leaves in place. However there is a large plot of Eastern white Pine trees near me, but I am kinda afraid to ask the land owners if I can take some dead needles. I can take those that are under our 2 white pines to finish, but I wanted to leave them there for those 2 pines to use to keep moisture in. I usually find lots of needles at the leaf dump in fallut haven't been able to collect as I usually have in years past.

Oh my gosh..............you might be surprised at the response of the folks who own the pine trees. It would be something I'd gladly do for a fellow gardener, as would a lot of other folks who have large stands of trees. The worse could happen is they say no. The best is a potential windfall.

I believe the safety concerns comes from municipalities who claim that Pine needles are a fire hazard. They say that fires start in the needles and spread to the house and other buildings.

Personally while fresh dry pine needles burn, I think there are some fire marshals who like the media attention when they make these statements

The pine needles collect moisture, so the wet pine needles would not be fire hazard. They will start decomposing almost immediately and by next fall they will have nearly disappeared. (Also depends on how deep you mulch.)

I have used pine needles for years and never saw any negative effects. I also use all of the leaves I can collect from my lot and the woods next door.

It never made sense to me to pick up the leaves, pine needles, and grass clippings and send them off to the dump, then turn around and buy fertilizers to replace the nutrients lost with the leaves, pine needles, and grass clippping

Calliope, the pines I mentioned are a windbreak which the owners can just ignore, as they have several acres of them,, so they probably won't be happy for someone taking them, it won't affect them much. They may think I have lost my marbles if I ask for them. It bothers me to have my Chestnut oak mulch ring 2/3 done, and the unfinished area so bare-looking, with a mostly decomposed hardwood mulch pie shaped slice. Well, I made it enourmous. I think I will just rake up from our white pines to finish. I think next fall I will put an add in the paper or a local trade/buy catalog for pine needles and pay $1.00 a garbage bag-ful. I won't have to keep checking the public leaf dumps (2 of em) and I can still use leaves, which are always plentiful at the leaf dumps. I can get my quota of them easy that way. I will of course gather them up if I can find them at the leaf dump. My mom's brother works at the township shed, where they collect leaves at one site, but he is too important to help me with collecting needles and leaves. They burn them instead. Or I need to get there soon after they are dumped. All I asked for is a heads up when there is a good pile of them, Well, I will use ours to finish the chestnut oak circle, and tackle others next spring, if needed. I don't mean to whine, although I have.