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Compost pine needles and stump sawdust?

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Posted by dianelouise PNW (My Page) on
Sat, Nov 29, 08 at 15:52

We just had 6 big fir/pine trees removed and stumped. I am trying to clean the area up so we can begin the relandscape design. The amount of mulch material is overwhelming! There is 20 years worth of pine "duff" topped by the sawdust from stumping the trees. Can I compost it all? How would I do that? Normally, I don't like to put pine needles in my compost bin because they take forever to decompose. Is there a good way to compost in place? Thanks in advance for your advise! Diane

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RE: Compost pine needles and stump sawdust?

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Sounds like good mulch to me. It does take forever to decompose and it's fairly acidic, so mulching around rhodies and other acid loving plants would be good. Keep the weeds down and make the plants happy.

Last year I added a wheelbarrow full of maple saw dust to my compost without researching it and turned it into compost mulch. It'll be years before it breaks down, looks good and is very healthy. Before I added the dust, it was extremely healthy compost.

So if you really want to use it in your compost, use it very sparingly.

And, for the record, I'm jealous, my rhodies and blueberries would love it!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure

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