hoover, if you find one, please post it. I am need of some too and live in Huntsville. I bought pine needles this spring, about 12-15 bales plus my neighbor collects bags of them from somewhere in the country( he won't tell me where) It is costly, and I have tried the bark mulch, too.
I wanted pine needles to mulch veggie beds, but it made the cost of my veggies very high. Good luck.

I collected a bunch of bags from the neighborhood next to ours. It was great. We sold the truck so I hate to put them in my van and at this time there are not a whole lot of them. This hobby is gettting very expensive!!!! :-)

Michele

I probably ought not share my "secret" mulch source, but I've had good success this year with ESBS Tree Service in HSV. Ask for Teresa. They have brought me three truck loads of free wood chips when they were cutting/chipping in Madison. They probably do a LOT of such work in HSV. Some I got was pine chips, with lots of rotting pine needles mixed in. Another load was sweet gum, with the sweet gum balls to boot.

Probably a good idea to ask what they are cutting the day they call you saying they have mulch available. And tell them if you want one truck load or several. The last time they came I ended up with two truck loads covering my entire driveway- that took me and my son a l o n g time to shovel and wheelbarrow to my flower beds.

And understand that hydraulic dump trucks tend to leak oil on one's nice driveway. And that a big truck manuevering may leave large black tire marks on concrete. You were warned!

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: ESBS Tree Services

It's worthwhile calling any of the tree companies in the area. It can be expensive for them to dump them in a landfill, and they are often looking for opportunities to get rid of loads of chips. There are a couple of good companies who dump chips at UAH (for campus use only), and know not to leave a load of trashy stuff. The crummy companies have been refused dumping privileges because of that. I don't see why a private homeowner couldn't ask for decent chips, as well!

You can be picky, if you want to. Tell them you don't want sweet gum balls, lol!

Speaking of different tree companies, I called all that mentioned wood chips in their yellow pages ad, and several that did not.

One told me that the tree companies were generally going away from chipping in favor of hauling off entire branches to wherever they haul.

Of all the tree companies I called, ESBS Trees was the only one that ever called me back since I started in December 2004, despite repeated calls in several cases. One strung me along, promising to call me back in a few minutes, but never called, much less delivered. It's been frustrating. But I'm glad to help share the word about the one company I did find that has come thru.

And for my purposes, sweet gum balls have been just fine. I have a lot of beds and wanted to smother the sod and weeds. 6 inches of chips has done that nicely. The only grass I've had come thru was along the edges and anyplace I had less than 6 inches of mulch.

If there was a delivery charge or whatever, I'd certainly consider that. But so far, Free Free Free has been great!

Jim