I am an Exterminator. I have my WDI license. (Wood Destroying Insects) I inspect and treat for Eastern Subterranean termites at least 2-3 times a week. Firstly, jeremiyjs, the guy above me, has no idea what he's talking about. Almost all termite invasions occur through hairline cracks below the soil line in the foundations of a home that the owner will never see or be able to see. Situations where termite tubes and termites are seen before they hit a basement sill plate are few and far between. If you've found them in your mulch, or tubes on your foundation and they aren't in the wood of your home consider yourself luckier than tens of thousands of others and get your house treated immediately. Not seeing termites does NOT mean you don't have them. Mulch does not attract or detract termites. Mulch does not transport termites in bags. If there are termites in it they will die without their colony. Mulch IS food for termites, and if found termites will eat it, but they will not seek out mulch anymore than they will your home. Termites forage blindly, making random tunnels and tubes in search of wood. Mulch will not protect your house from termites or guarantee early warning. One job I did the owners had mulch around their entire house. They didn't know they had termites till they were tunneling through the drywall in the living room (drywall material is just packed dirt to termites). Their mulch was untouched. There are on average 13-14 termite nests an acre. These nests can tunnel 1/2 a mile in a single day when foraging, but usually don't. Any given nest will have several sources of food that it's workers go to. If they are eating your mulch, it's not going to stop them from eating your house as well. Termites require moisture to live. They do not require you to provide it for them by watering, though it does make things easier for them. Subterranean termites do not live in wood, they live in soil, this is the main reason moving mulch will not transfer a termite infestation. (Drywood Termites are a completely different story.) Treatment: Get a foundation treatment. This is when your exterminator will inject or trench termiticide 6-12 inches deep around your entire foundation. I recommend Termidor specifically out of the various termiticides. Do NOT rely on baits or monitoring stations to protect yourself. Termites are just as likely to skip them and hit a house as they are feed on them. The Rule of 5: Termidor will last for 5 years in the ground before fading. A new nest takes about 5 years to reach a point where it can cause significant damage to a home. Newly built homes are generally safe for 5 years because of this. The Rule of 5 is subject to Murphy's Law, but holds true 99% of the time. Long story short, if you have evidence of termites anywhere in your yard they could sit there and never touch your house for 100 years. Or they could find a crack in your foundation and be inside your drywall in less than a month. Get your house treated.

My DH can pick it up in bulk with the truck then, we didn't know if the place near us had it so he had just bought the bags from HD. He wants all the mulch to be the same, though, so I guess that means we'll need more -- especially if it needs to be 3" thick! Is that the thickness AFTER we stomp on it to compress it? Too bad it probably won't rain again until the end of the year, I want to know NOW if it's going to roll down the hill LOL! I think it looks nice, though, helps the yard have a more maintained feel, even more than the other kinds of mulches we have tried.

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!

If the little buggers don`t eat my plants they are fine to do whatever they do. I just freaked out because there were SO MANY of them but if they are just breaking down the wood and eating mold then they are welcome the more the merrier! Thanks taz! :o)Deanna