This is info that I was hoping to find, thanks all. My DH brought home a half dozen bags of "Potting Soil" that is so full of clay it makes the stones it contains into little balls! I thought sand might be useful to break it up. If it gets wet and then dries out, it's as hard as a rock. I hate it. I guess I'll be doing a few dirt experiments to try to find a cure for this ugly stuff. If I still hate it after that, I'll have him put the bags back in my old rolling wreck car and I'll pretend they don't exist!

Could she have been confusing straw with hay? Hay is from cut grasses and alfalfa and these fields usually harbor lots of weeds palatable to horses for feed. I get wheat or barley straw and it doesn't matter when I get it...last fall or spring. I get mine from a local farmer and I've had only a few weeds come from it in 5 years! I never allow staw still baled to become wet either....you could risk your life if mold sets in and breath it while you break it apart dry. Now I do get some barley or wheat sprouting form time to time...epecially in cool weather, but they get hoed in and in turn feed the soil too. Vera

Effective mulches have a markedly different texture from the soil beneath, enabling them to function as a barrier to the movement of moisture out of the soil, and to interfere with the growth of weed seeds. The best mulch I have used is wood chips from a cedar mill, obtained through a bark and soil dealer. However, I have heard recently these are no longer available to us - having been diverted to another use. Fine-textured mulches like composted materials resembling the soil beneath are not as successful. Here is a link that might be useful: Myth of Pretty Mulch

Barb - pine straw is indeed pine needles. The place I am planning to get it from ships 40 lb bales - awkward and heavy, thus the shipping charge I am sure. According to their site, "Each bale covers approximately 120 square feet at 2.5 inches thick" which is plenty for me, probably for several years, so it really is cost effective. Of course, free would be better, but....If you find anywhere locally that has pine straw available, and it is nice clean stuff, please let me know! Glad you find my novice posts on the Conifer Forum useful; I love conifers, and would really like to get a nice collection of dwarf specimens going, but the expense....There are some wonderfully knowledgeable collectors on that forum and at least we get to see pictures of how it should be done! kareng_grow - obviously, you don't have the right kind of pine trees there....:p Sorry you hate the stuff, but it seems to be recommended by a lot of people so I would like to try it out. The link below gives reasons why pine straw is a good mulch to use - of course, it is from a place the sells the product so they aren't gong to say it is lousy, but it matches what I have read elsewhere from actual gardeners. Of course, what won me over is their 11th reason - that zoos use it. :-D (In a list titled "Ten ways..." they include 12 reasons - ??). mtny - thank you for letting us know why you don't like pine bark mulch. I am planning to start using ponderosa pine nuggets as a mulch and I am also concerned about transporting pine beetles along with it; unfortunately, the companies that sell the nuggets don't, obviously, list their sources, and certainly don't state that it is "from pine beetle killed trees." How do you avoid this potential disaster? Holly Here is a link that might be useful: Reasons to use pine straw