Jacquelyn, for a Texas clay-based soil, no mulch is better than a coarse-screened compost, and cotton bole (cotton bur) compost is the best of those. Otherwise, no organic compost is going to turn your clay into concrete. Au contraire, in fact. So, cedar, cypress, and pulverised hardwood mulches are all okay to use. They just don't work into the soil as quiclky as a composted material does.

I'd stay away from pine bark mulch only because it tends sometimes to turn into a black, mushy mess as it decomposes.

Pine bark also has a tendency to float or blow away.
As far as what kind of mulch to use - YOU should use whatever you have access to and can afford. If it's a natural material it all breaks down eventually. I personally use hay because I can afford it and it is easily available in my area.
Read all you can, but take it All with a grain of salt and just use your own good sense. BTW, what you are planning on using sounds great to me. As far as manure with shavings, my only caution would be that if it is very fresh manure it could burn some plants. Other than that it is Great stuff. I mean how many animals do you know of that are fed as well as the average horse!

Jeanette
Texas
zone 8b

I noticed nobody mentioned the cypress mulch. Why don't you like that? I spend a fortune every year putting on the cypress mulch--not the colored. By the way, I wonder if it takes the nitrogen out of the soil. Anybody noticed or heard if it does? Thanks - Barb

I don't like it for my garden because I need to add 10 lbs of organic matter to each 100 sq. ft. of my clay soil each year to maintain an adequate level. Cypress mulch takes too long to decompose and, therefore, doesn't fulfill that need. A good quality, coarse-screened compost, used as a mulch, does.

Use whatever is cheap or free and available locally in bulk. Availability is important. If you have shredded pine bark available locally, use it. If you have cotton burr compost available, use it. If you have free wood chips from the tree trimmers, use it. You need so many yards of it, (or at least I do) that spending money on the "ideal" mulch is simply impractical. Anything organic will rot over time, improving the soil, and a sprinkle of just plain cheap lawn fertilizer over the top will keep it from initially pulling N from the top layer of soil and away from your roses. Overall though, by the time it's broken down into all of it's component nutrients, the N becomes available again, so you're not really "leaching" it from the soil, you're just appropriating it from one place to another.

You use the best stuff available to you locally that you can obtain in bulk. For some people this is their own garden compost, but most of us can't make as much as we need. Some communities have free composting, and residents can get what they want, so much volume per visit. I can't get enough that way either.

I just bought eight yards of composted garden waste, and now wish I had bought ten. My driveway is almost completely blocked. I can't produce it in anything like this quantity on my own place, and I will have no problem at all using this much. Last year I put down fine bark mulch. It was attractive, did a good job supressing weeds and preserving moisture, and over time I bet it will improve soil texture. I'm going to rake it up all that is left, put down the compost, and put what I have left back on the top just because it looks good. On the other hand, the rich, black color of the compost is very pretty, too.

I have a clay soil, though I suspect of a different composition than you Texans have. Where others gardened before me and compost has been used for 60 years, the soil is rich and fairly easy to dig. Where I have expanded -- and amended heavily -- it bakes hard all summer. If I use compost every year over the years, I hope that the gardens I added will also have this lovely soil.

I keep remembering the soil at Vintage Gardens, soft as butter. The spade slipped right into it with no effort. I want that soil for my garden. The only way to get it is to build it.

Paula

I have so many trees in my yard and I have received a wonderful harvest of oak and maple leaves and pine needles. I also went to the dump to get free mullch and compost. I will not use cypress because the harvesting of trees for the purpose of producing mulch is causing great harm. Pine bark and mulch comes from farmed trees grown for paper or lumber. I would hope more people would find an alternative to cypress products. I found out eucalyptus is farmed.