My favorite mulch is the shredded tree trimmings dropped off by a tree pruning company.

Since it contains every part of the tree, it contains a lot of water & a lot of green, which makes the mulch pile heat up with biological activity.

The variety of plant tissue is very good for the soil, & the grayish spores or fungus disappear as the mulch dries out.

Pine BARK (not the pine wood, but the bark) does not decompose quickly at all. This is the pine product called nuggets and they come in large and smaller sizes.

I don't know why you can't find a bulk source of pine bark. What about pine straw?

What you are hearing is people expressing opinion with nothing of fact to support that opinion. Kind of the same as those that talk of compost as being just a mulch material. Either one, with the nod going to the least expensive, is okay to use as a mulch. If one exhibits signs of fungi more than the other that simply means it probably has a more active fungal colony. The presence of moulds or other signs of fungus does not necessarily equate with diseases contrary to what many people seem to think. Bacteria and fungus are around us everywhere everyday and most are essential to life. A few of each are disease pathogens, but if you pay attention to the ads promoting cleaning products any and all bacteria and fungi are bad and must be eradicated and this information is what most people today operate one, false information.

Where are you "hearing" about the pests and diseases?

You want a mulch that lasts - it's purpose is to cover up the soil and keep the moisture constant. Fast decomposing materials don't make the best mulch.

And if all there is that fits your budget is hardwood, use it.

lazygardens, covering the soil and keeping moisture constant is isn't the only "purpose" of mulch. Sounds like it's the purpose you use it for, and that's fine. Sometimes, other people choose mulches as a way of getting more organic material into their soil (while they keep the soil moist). When that is a goal, a fast decomposing material makes the best mulch. People have different preferences, different gardens, different situations - and thus sometimes different choices about what mulch is best for them.

lcpw - You are absolutely correct. I am a Master Gardner and all of the lectures we go to stress the importance of feeding the soil with everything, including mulch. Mulch serves many purposes.

I prefer the shredded over the bulk. I know for a fact that places sell SHREDDED pine bark mulch, which is what I priced at $5.00 a bag.

My problem is that I have the shredded hardwood mulch and it hardens up in huge pieces and will last for 2 years or more before starting to break down. But, it looks terrible so piling more mulch on top just makes the beds too high and removing all of the mulch is just not practical.

Just be very certain that your hardwood chips don't contain walnut of any variety. Or juniper, either, which isn't a hardwood, but is sure toxic to many types of plants.

Do you have an objection to the tree trimmings from the arborist/pruning company? Even if I didn't get mine for FREE, I would still rave about them. The top layer looks neat and the bottom layer next to soil composts very quickly.

I realize that this is a 5 year-old thread, but I had this same question and I found this article to be very helpful. It compares various types of mulch in terms of speed of decomposition, nutrient content, etc.

Link isn't working, it seems very long, can you repost a direct link?

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=2841&Type=2&ei=zAyLVf7gDoS4oQS1z4HoAw&usg=AFQjCNGBBqS_DhYmBs3Y-CaQbd3JdoT_pg

I'm not sure why the link isn't working. When I click on it directly from your comment above, I get the redirect notice, but if I copy and paste that same link into my address bar, it opens the original PDF of the article / study I was referencing. See if that works for you.

It's not working because it's a GOOGLE search link ... I get a server error.

Please open the link to the journal so you do NOT see this Google search stuff at the beginning

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=

Here is an alternative link to the same article.

http://archive.treelink.org/joa/1999/march/06_COMPARISON_OF_LANDSCAPE_MULCHES_duryea.pdf

That works, thanks schwartzy.

That new link doesn't work anymore either. I would love to have some sort of science on the different types of mulches.

Hardwood vs. Pine vs. Cedar primarily. I have no means to create my own mulch. I am primarily curious about wood based mulches being compared.