Playground mulch is actually designed to standards that have mostly to do with impact (and liability to those who specify it). The knock on cedar mulch, as I remember it, is that it is very fibery and can give you little tiny splinters if you contact it a lot (refering to western red cedar). Pine mulch is a widely varying thing as there is no standard, there are lots of species of pine, and then there is the whole thing between recycled wood, wood chips, and actual bark (won't even go into dye).... and in the south they use pine needles as mulch (usually called pine straw). Pine mulch can mean a lot of different things. My mulch of choice is finely ground pine BARK. The problem is that it is more often than not "cut" with other crap (recycled wood or wood chips) these days and you wind up with a bunck of wood chips on top after about a month to the weather.

Conpost makes an excellent mulch and it can be applied any time. In zone 7, there is little concern about soil freezing or plant heaving, so applying for winter protection (waiting to apply after the soil freezes) is moot. As kimmsr states, it is far better to have the soil covered in winter to reduce erosion and compaction from rain water than to leave it uncovered and fall, after plant foliage dies back and the soil is more exposed, is an excellent time to do so. But any mulch will work similarly. Compost is primarily considered a soil amendment, not a fertilizer. While it does provide an excellent source of organic nutrients, their concentrations are quite low and variable depending on initial ingredients. What it does provide consistently is improvement to soil structure and therefore tilth and drainage, replenishment of organic matter and a hospitable environment for soil organisms.

I am at at Tim Horton's parking lot (free WiFi) so that I can get on my macbook to find a thread in the Hosta forum somewhere that could help me remember exactly what size pine to use in my media for my pots. Well, lo and behold I found this perfect thread and I thought it could use a 'bump' for this season considering there have been media questions. Anyway, now I can go back into Canadian Tire feeling confident that I will buy the right stuff. You should have seen the young lads face when I couldn't decide what to buy and I told him that I would be back after I visited my forum and asked my hosta friends :) Again...thanks so much to all of you really experienced folks who share your knowledge with the rest of us!

Any wood mulch product will eventually break down and can supply nutrients back to the soil - it just takes longer than most other types of organic mulches. Playground mulch is not all that different from using bark or wood chips as a mulch, although I would refrain from using it to mulch edible crops (glues and other additives may leach some potential toxins) and for shallow rooted plants like annual or perennials where there may be some nitrogen depletion at the soil surface, but it is fine to use around woody plants like trees and shrubs.