Backyard covered in pine needles from neighbors trees... Mulch?

13 years ago

The below picture happens just about every other fall pending we have heavy winds like we do today. No winds, no mess. It's a real pain to cleanup, so I thought about putting my cleanup efforts to a good use. The strip is around 200' x 40' of pine needles blown from our neighbors trees into our yard and they are still falling. The picture below is only 50' of 200' total. It's like a freaking snow storm of pine needles right now lol.

Obviously I would need a lot more than this to fill all my beds so using all pine needles just isn't practical. I thought about mixing this in with my current mulch to give my beds a more 'not so groomed' look until my trees can produce enough needles themselves that fall each year. I could be incorrect, but I thought pine needles don't break down as fast as mulch. In the past I've always bagged them up and dumped them on the back of my property.

Since it'll take hours to clean all of this up, I figured I would see if any drawbacks would come of this or if I should just dump them.

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Comments (10)

whaas_5a
13 years ago
I'd mulch it right into the grass or use a large plastic rake and dump them in and around your plants. If you have alkaline soil the needles will add acidity to the soil...something the pines will enjoy.

I love it when the leaves blow into my yard. I mulch them right into the lawn providing food for the worms that aerate the soil.
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ricksample
Original Author
13 years ago
I mulch leaves right back into the soil... it's free fertilizer, I only wish I had more trees on the property. Pine needles on the other hand I can't mulch up, the tractor will just keep blowing them out. I have a bagger for my tractor that I use to clean these up with. The only problem is that there is always so many that I'll have to empty the bags a good 20 times. This is actually the worst I've ever seen it.

I'll gather some up and spread them around the base of some of the plants for added winter protection and mulch. I'm not going to add as much as I was going to because I just found out they blow around easily. Well at least they do today with winds around 30MPH.

It's actually a lot worse right now, the entire picture above is tan, hardly any grass poking through. The winds are increasing, blowing them further
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no... you have two solutions for MATURE pines ... one.. get rid of them .. and solve the needle issue ... two ... remove the rock.. AND LEAVE THE NEEDLES UNDER THE TREES.. where they have naturally accumulated for millions of years ... let me ask you ... why are you forcing a preconceived notion of landscape rock under a pine tree ... pines are conifers .... ALL conifers shed their needles.. generally within 1 to 3 years ... increased by a good drought some years .. the thought that the situation .. on a 40 foot tree.. is going to get better.. or lessened in the future is problematic ... landscape fabric is a snakeoil salesman's joke on the gardening world.. a useless waste of money better spent ... as most weed seed is airborne .. so minutes after putting it down.. you have already been defeated ... roll this around.. if you left the pine needles to build naturally ... they would become a mulch.. a highly acidic mulch ... and reduce your weed problem exponentially ... you are actually defeating the trees attempt to suffocate weed production.. by removing the needles ... bob.. WAG here ... you are trapped in suburbia ... on a small lot.. with sidewalks and neighbors way to close.. and you are getting frustrated with a pine tree.. that in all reality.. is now becoming the FOREST MONSTER it is meant to be.. if there is any budget.. think long and hard about removal .. you are not going to change its inherent properties.. of growing and shedding needles ... in ITS lifetime ... otherwise.. its all good exercise ... good luck ken ps: you are stuck in a box .. i am trying make you look outside the box you have created .... Here is a link that might be useful: check out some of these pix.. you are fighting mother nature.. she ALWAYS wins ....
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The swale looks like it was created for access or drainage. Would either be the case? Is there a gate in the fence at the end of the swale? If there's no physical reason not to proceed with your plan, it seems generally fine, but artistically in need of enhancement. One way to make islands look bad is to have the trees end up at their edge. Conversely, to make them look good is that the bed extends some degree beyond the tree grouping. In your drawing the looping dip into the space seems extreme. It should be more subtle in order not to end up looking forced and contrived. An example... In the long run it becomes tiresome to add mulch to large beds over the years. I would consider -- once the islands are WEED FREE -- of adding a groundcover so that there would come an end to mulching. You would need to manage the groundcover, but if you start weed free and keep it that way through establishment, it's a fairly easy task. Also, if one plans ahead, it's fairly easy to propagate most groundcovers so that the expense of acquiring large amounts of them is relatively low. Not exactly sure what you mean by "hand weeded," but with a property of this size, I would be heavily mulching the island(s), and spot spraying weeds with herbicide in a back-pack (only) sprayer. If you are against using herbicide, then still, the heavy mulch and diligent weed removal/control by hand (uuugh!) Diligent!
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I use the plastic edging around a garden that's on a similar slope in my yard to keep sheet water from flowing through and washing out the mulch. Given your neighbors' yards appear to be draining through the area and the amount of rain you get in NC, I'm betting you have a lot of water rushing through there at times. BUT if you completely blocked off the whole area with plastic edging, it would flow right over and do absolutely no good (not to mention ticking off the neighbors in the process). Therefore, you could divide the area into three or four beds, leaving at least a couple feet in between to allow water to rush through the grassed or rock channels. You can then mulch the beds without too much water running the gardens and washing out the mulch. I don't know how much water comes through that area, so I'll leave a necessary size of the beds and channels to you. This may not be the most aesthetically pleasing way to do this but it may help keep the mulch in place. If you do go through with this, be sure to watch the edging you buy. At least one big box seller with orange aprons, in addition to its cheap stuff, offers a "professional grade" in a larger bundle that's of much much better quality (taller, thicker, heavier, more rubbery) for not much, if anything, more. In addition to lasting longer, it's a lot easier to install IMO.
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
13 years ago
ya know.. out east.. they bundle it like straw .. and sell it to gardeners ... why not take the opportunity to use it???

why must all your beds be mulched with the same stuff.. have you pondered using mulch as an aesthetic in your garden ...

since it remains rather fluffy all winter.. it can be used to nearly bury smaller things that could use protection from the winter winds.. and then removed later ...

it would be applied in a few weeks when all doubt of temp spikes are gone .... if you are contemplating heavy covering ...

nothing wrong with mowing it in.. but you may as well throw a fistful of dollars on top of it while you do it.. since you are mowing up a product worth money ...

ken
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ricksample
Original Author
13 years ago
Good point Ken, I'll gather it up with my bagger and keep it in a pile for a few weeks to cover all my small plants with to protect them during winter. I have a good amount, but probably no more than 1 mid size truck load. It's now spread over an area 200' x 60', but very thin just enough to block the green grass out.

Depending on how much I have when all bagged up will depend on what I do with it. It would be real nice to use it in one of my beds pending I have enough since the beds are large.
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
13 years ago
i would rake it.. the longer the needles.. the fluffier it stays ... and that is important later in winter ...

ken
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botann
13 years ago
Free mulch!
I'd keep the area lawn as long as you can so you can keep harvesting the needles. Looks like the neighbor has a screen already in place. How nice.
Mike
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User
13 years ago
Rick,
They sell pine straw (which are pine needles, what is on your lawn) for 4.00 a small bundle at all the stores down here!
People buy it up!
They apply it to all the commercial beds.
If you apply it thick enough, it doesn't blow around as much.
It insulates, worms absolutely love it, and it allows water to easily travel through it which the plants love.
Apply it to all your beds, especially evergreens, and in the spring, in April, just take it off and apply decorative mulch if you like.
You can leave it, it will last a little longer than regular mulch, it doesn't break down as fast.
Don't leave that on the grass though, it will kill the grass.
It's super easy to rake, I do it every fall.
I should sell it, but I'm too lazy. LOL!
Your lucky!
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botann
13 years ago
You're lucky is right!
Why take it off in Spring and apply a decorative mulch? . Let the needles lay. Just give them a light, cosmetic mulch on top. Save yourself some work and money. Water it in good.
I have put down wood chips and then covered them with ground up bark in the areas closer to the house and entrance way to dress it up more than the back garden. Purchased mulch is expensive, especially when you have as much room as you do.
A garbage man told me once that I would be surprised how many people rake up old mulch, put it in the garbage, and then apply a new mulch. Why not just cover it with new if you don't like the look of old mulch? I plant groundcovers to take over as the old mulch decays and then top dress as needed.
Mike
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Ament
13 years ago
Whew, if only I had access to someone doing that! LoL I'd gladly take their bagged old mulch! :D

~Tina
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ricksample
Original Author
13 years ago
Well I got it all raked up and I had about a good truck load. My beds are so 'neat' looking with the hardwood chips and I wanted to get away from that. I also needed to reshape a few beds which made them larger. So I took a lot of these needles and mixed into my existing beds which allowed me to extend them without removing to much mulch. It also made it look more like a conifer garden since everything isn't so neat anymore. I still have about half a trunk load left that I'll probably dump in one of my new beds.

I'm done paying for mulch... this year I purchased 18 yards which wasn't cheap. Next year I think I'm going to take my truck down and get the cities free mulch from brush removal then in fall use these pine needles. It's better than spending $300 a year on mulch! You live and you learn I guess lol.
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Backyard covered in pine needles from neighbors trees... Mulch?

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Backyard covered in pine needles from neighbors trees... Mulch?

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whaas_5a

ricksampleOriginal Author

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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

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