Wow. Our little garden center has only Black Cow and Cotton Burr compost in bags. I use real manure (when I can get it) or old leaves for composts. I buy horse manure and pine bark mulch in bulk for about $130/dump-truck load. It's not perfect, but has done well for the price. I have a home compost pile for food trash, coffee grounds, grass clippings, leaves etc... (I add bagged stuff like bone meal etc...and use fish emulsion too.) I'm pretty small scale and have only 50 or fewer roses.

I'd go for the "organic vineyard". Basic is good.

And I can afford more of it :-)))))

Susan

I buy Tango from Grab and Grow. It's still cheaper and better than what we have available locally(Mendocino County)

Can you get horse or cow manure delivered by the same dump truck service? And dumped in the same place in your yard. 200 roses, plus I assume other plants & shrubs, will use it up fast. If you have a lot left over, you can put a tarp over it and save it for the next compost-mulching season.

Carol

I think I ordered the Tango last year. And before that I may even have used the Mango, and probably the GreenAll. Since I haven't been consistent enough about my methods, I have no idea if any one of them performed better than any of the others, which is why I was looking for input. I'm glad to know you use the Tango, Mendocino_rose.

The configuration of my property is such that the only dumping spot available is a parking space that is contained on three sides (although not entirely closed in). There really is only room for one truck load of stuff, so I have to rotate what I have dumped there. I just finished a full load of planting soil, so now for a load of compost; then another load of soil mix,.....etc.

sheesh - I can hardly believe the prices - they are ultra cheap compared to the UK. We expect to pay around $80 a tonne (cubic metre) for basic top soil while composted barks are easily $100. Even green waste (which is total rubbish apart from a basic mulch or inert soil conditioner) costs $4 for a 50 litre bag. I buy a lot of John Innes loam at about $5 for 30 litres.....then, when we take fuel costs into consideration if you collect you own, horticulture is expensive.

And I can afford more of it :-)))))

Yeah baby!

{{gwi:229801}}

Dontcha just know life is good when a big stinking pile of brown stuff makes you happier than....just about anything you can think of?

How many yards is that hoovb?

Mango Mulch was the best mulch we ever used at my former garden, no mangoes in it but the name was easy to remember. The Old Roses bloomed in such sublime poise, even the colors appeared richer, and each rosebush bloomed in a luxurious quantity, with healthy foliage forming green leafy banks and arches: the garden seemed to shimmer with a spiritual quality, as if an angelic light suffused every atom. It seemed magical to me.
-This year due to budget, I'm using a simple blend of bagged organic chicken manure to an equal part of compost.
because of the nitrogen content of the chix. manure I only spread this only two inches deep instead of 4-6 inches deep. This has worked well for me in previous years.

at a popular heirloom rose nursery in Northern California I saw the owners mulching a section of rosebushes (Teas mostly) with horse manure, that looked aged a few months to me, used unmixed with any other substance. It was so fresh the clumps still showed unbroken down straw lengths of c. 2 inches long. I thought that would have been far too "hot" but those folks are experts and the rosebushes were thriving when I saw visited them six months later.
I stopped using bagged steer manure after buying 3 bags last autumn to mix with compost and native soil in two long rows of flower beds that were to be planted with narcissi bulbs and I left a bag of the cheap steer manure cut open and it rained that night, the next day the manure smelled of chemicals and was a mass of brown with an oily blue-purple shine like an oil slick. Yuck. I wondered what in tarnation those cattle were being fed.

Lux.

Ten yards. Wasn't quite enough.