here's the picture of the second bag:

and here's a picture of the description in the back of the bag.

It is what loggers peel off the trees after they cut them down. That bark most likely was collected at the saw mill and not in the forest. It is a meaningless term meant to make you think that product is more eco friendly.

kimmsr,

Thanks for the response. Does that mean it may or may not be pine or fir bark?

yes

It will be whatever was going through the sawmill when that bag was produced.

And usually a brand of mulch buys from multiple mills, so you really have no way of knowing if it's pine or hardwood bark unless you can tell by the smell. Or DNA analysis.

I can tell what the local pellet fuel producer is using because sometimes it smells like ponderosa pine, sometimes like spruce and sometimes juniper ... and sometimes like forest fire-damaged trees.

But I'm not growing orchids.

thanks for the information everyone. I guess I'll have to continue to pay premium price for pine or fir bark.

I visited all the self bag facility where they mini bark covered peat moss.

The EB Stone orchid bark is terrible - tons of wet dirt.

So, i'm back in using Uni-Gro Orchid Bark bag that stated 100% fir bark. It's about $7 for a bag of 8 quart. It has tons of sapwood so it's time consuming in picking those out.

This post was edited by May888 on Sun, Apr 27, 14 at 13:23

I use it for ground cover that eventually feeds the soil when it breaks down, it is the best, besides cocoa mulch.

No, HU-279425810, the best mulch is a compost mulch. A cocoa mulch sounds delicioius, though.