Do you have any pine needles in your area?

Hi,

No hay, unless you want grass and or alfalfa growing in around your roses. If it's good hay, it will likely have lots of viable seeds. That stuff is really hard to pull up (alfalfa has a deep tap root!).

Leaves, yes. There's a thread about it on Rocky Mountain Gardening forum.

Clean straw works OK, rather than hay. If it's wheat straw and some wheat germinates, at least it's easy to pull up (it forms shallow rooted clumps). I have used straw for a few years w/ no problems.

Cheers,
Michelle

I always use straw - a lot fewer seeds than hay.

Yeesh, I now have a terribly embarassing question; how do I tell the difference between hay and straw? I have a bale of 'straw' colored stuff. I looked through it, and it doesn't seem to have (many) seed heads in it. I found some pieces that obviously used to have seeds on them (kind of zig zaggy) but don't anymore. The majority of it is fairly wide, very stiff stuff. It doesn't look like it would be pleasant to eat. Can I assume this is straw? Thanks so much; not much of a farm girl, it seems!

Lara

Unless you are guaranteed that the hay or straw (doesn't matter, they both are notorious for seeds) are cleaned for seeds don't use them. You can't imagine the mess in the spring (believe me, I know).

What you can use are leaves, ground or not, but ground is better. You can do this with a chipper/shredder if you have one, or a lawn mower and crunch them up. Pine needles will also work famously if you have any. I'm always in favor of leaf mold. It's full of nutrients and is the fastest and best way to enrich the soil.

Mulch is good too, but it's expensive.

Straw should not have any seed heads at all - it should only be stalk material. Hay will have seed heads.