Re: Pine Needles for Iris Mulch (Was: Broccoli as a green manure crop....
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: Pine Needles for Iris Mulch (Was: Broccoli as a green manure crop....
  • From: B* A* G* <b*@cybermesa.com>
  • Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2012 07:41:08 -0700
Yes, pine needles are a bit of a fire hazard. But if you only use them to mulch things, I don't think they would be quite so dangerous. Sweep them up from areas that are not flower beds -- lawn, walks, decks etc. Then they won't provide a consistent path for fire. As I understand it, pine needles are dangerous mostly for forest and brush fires. I wouldn't think they would be a problem in the garden from say -- a careless match or spark except in the driest of conditions. I think letting pine needles accumulate all over the place would be a bit of a problem, but, of course, that is how pine forests enrich the soil. I guess, I would try to keep them swept up and piled into mulched areas or a compost pile which has to be kept wet if there is going to be any composting going on. The local firemen tell me compost piles aren't generally a real hazard. They just smolder. Of course, compost piles can spontaneously combust, but I have never been able to get the temperatures in mine any where near combustion levels -- and that is with trying to hot compost. 
Betty

On 11/6/2012 6:55 AM, Betty Ann Gunther wrote:
Pine needles don't hold moisture very well until they break down. They seem to have a waterproof coating -- until they break down. Rot hasn't been a problem with pine needles in my garden with pine needles or at the Santa Fe Iris Society Iris Garden where we use newspaper covered with wood chips from the Santa Fe Environmental Services. Both methods do hold down the weeds very well and do recycle things that might otherwise have gone to the landfill. And they enrich the soil. 

Betty G.

On 11/6/2012 5:43 AM, SDAyres2@aol.com wrote:

Thanks for the reply.  My soil is alkaline so I don't mind a little pH
change. Do you think it is a fire risk if you apply it next to the house? Intense moisture and little rain makes mulching a good idea as long as it doesn't trap moisture next to the rhizomes. We do have a monsoon season in 
August (some years).
  I've written an article on the subject on the club's web site
  Here is a link
_https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bx8xSRt-YuRYVjZQU0wtejNTcGs_
(https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bx8xSRt-YuRYVjZQU0wtejNTcGs)
    Scarlett
In a message dated 11/5/2012 1:01:22 P.M. Mountain Standard Time, 
phantomfyre@yahoo.com writes:

Pine  needles - YES!!! They are the best iris mulch, as they don't hold
moisture like other mulches. My neighbors on either side of me have white 
pine
trees that drop needles every fall, and they are delighted to give them to 
me
or  have me come take them away. I mulch everything with them - TBs
included.  I
don't worry about the acidity - when you mulch with something on the acid side, it decays slowly, so the acidifying properties of the mulch material 
is
offset by time and leaching as they compost slowly at surface level.
However,
if you till them into the soil, then you can run into  issues with pH
changes.
Since I started mulching, the irises are so much happier, and so am I. Soil moisture and temperature are kept even, organic matter is (slowly) added to 
the soil, and I actually have a chance of  keeping up with the weeds!

Diana
Anshakov

N.  Illinois



________________________________

From: Betty  Ann
Gunther <bettyg@cybermesa.com>
Subject: Re: [iris] Brocolie as  a green manure
crop control soil diseases

By the way, I, too, am a  veteran leaf snatcher.
But others have caught
on in my town and you  have to be quick to get the
leaves. The pine
needles are not commonly  used in Los Alamos but we have lots
of them.
They take a long  time to decay but make a good mulch for those of
us
with alkaline  soil.  In the south gathering and baling pine needles for
sale is a  business, but local folklore in Los Alamos is that pine
needles
contain  too much acid.  Well, I think that is what we need!  So
I use  them.
They decay more quickly than in my compost pile.

Betty  Gunther
Los Alamos,  NM

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