Thanks everyone for the advice. I stopped at the garden center today and picked up a couple of bags of pine bark. The cost was $2.75 each for a 2CF bag. The material in the bags looked slightly different, perhaps a little better, than the bags I bought earlier this year. From what I could see there might have been less sapwood in this batch. They had about 1/2 a pallet of pine bark fines left, much of it very wet from the recent rains. I dug around and tried to get the driest bags I could find. If I had use for more bark, and a place to store it, I would have bought several more bags at that price. I simply don't have room in my garage to store more than a few bags, unless I want to park my vehicle out in the driveway lol. TYG

xpfeng, Thanks for the posting. These days I have very limited time so I am often not here for extended periods of time. Just to be clear, I'm not an expert on growing plants in containers. I read and re-read hundreds of previous posts by other GW members and took their wisdom, experience, and advice and adapted those ideas to my local needs and conditions. I'm not a gardener by trade and only grow small conifer trees (pine, spruce and firs) in 1 and 2-gallon containers for my own use. I do not grow veggies, houseplants, or flowers in these soils so I have no experience to share in that area so unfortunately I can't comment on your specific plants and their needs. The first few times I made Al's 5-1-1 mix I made it exactly as the recipe stated. As I gained experience I tried different things. In general, for my climate conditions and they types of plants I grow, I find that a soil mix of roughly 3 parts screened (1/2" and smaller) pine bark to 1 part of screened perlite is a good place to start. If your pine bark has a lot of very fine dust in it you will not need to add any MG potting soil or peat. If your bark has very little dusty material then you will need to add peat. The amount of dust and fine material will vary from bag to bag so you just have to get a "feel" for this. To each gallon of soil mix, I add 1 Tbsp of dolomitic lime and 1 Tbsp of control release fertilizer. If you find that your plants need more moisture then increase the amount of bark. If you want less moisture, cut back on bark and add more perlite. The goal is that you want to keep the soil damp or slightly moist in the root zone but also provide oxygen to the roots. You do not want soggy soil. I have to run, but I hope this basic info has been helpful in some way. You can ask specific questions in the Container forum and others here might have the answers you need. Good luck. TYG

Wow! So much advice... Thanks. Actually, I was going to take the lazy route and just pile the needles on top of wintering plants in a mound as a buffer against the cold. I used to live in New England I used to do this with a lot of success with some of my more tender plants, or when we had a winter without a lot of snow (which is very insulating). I don't know what kind of pine tree mine is (was) -- it is very long needled and probably 20-25ft tall -- definitely something that a previous owner planted rather than a native since I am in town and I suspect that most of the trees were planted back in the early 60's when the house was built. There's an elm, a redbud, a pecan, what I think is some kind of mesquite, a crape myrtle, and a juniper. Of all these the redbud is the healthiest --the pecan loses branches fairly often from those borer things that make branches fall off looking like they've been gnawed by teeny tiny beavers, the very tall crape myrtle gets the "drips" in the summer and is way too tall to spray it myself (this year I am going to cough up the money to have it pruned way back, although I like the natural look much better). My juniper is very tall but of course the lower and inner branches have a LOT of ball moss. Sigh. And the pecan took a hit this year from laden-down pecan-filled branches from all that rain we had. I am so fortunate to have all these trees in a pretty small yard and I really think I need to invest some money in getting them pruned by an arborist (but it's soooooo expensive for someone who really knows what they're doing). It's so hard to keep up with all this when working full time and having so many other "creatures" that need care, but I guess all of you know about that!

Neither of them is going to contribute much to the soil short term. Both are very durable materials (provided what species tree the "cedar" actually comes from - too many different conifers are referred to as "cedar", of which most are not) and used as mulch will take considerable time (several years) to break down/decompose enough to the point they release nutrients back into the soil. btw, wood chip or bark mulches do not rob nitrogen from the soil. That is a tough to kill garden myth :-) Nitrogen tie up (not robbing or stealing) occurs during decomposition of the wood product by soil organisms and only happens if the wood product is incorporated into the soil, not if left on the soil surface as a mulch. And is of minimal consequence to established woody plants, like any fruit trees. It is also only a temporary condition, resulting in a net release of N long term. If you want a fast acting mulch that will encourage soil improvement and biological activity, mulch with compost or composted manure. You will get an almost immediate effect. You can always bark over the top if you want a more long term appearance.