Allotments 4 All

Did you see the Gardeners World Chrissy special tonight?  Monty shredded an old Christmas tree and planned to use the very course shreddings, needles and all, to mulch around his newly planted (and HUGELY expensive) conifer garden.

Would i be right in thinking that composting (seperately of course) would remove the so called growth retardant in the needles? Ie the the composting process woul break down the hormone in the needles? Its just i have noticed that once rotted down the needles turn into a nice looking compost/soil conditioner, which things seem to grow in fine (when mixed with soil/other compost). it would appear its the 'raw' needles that are the problem.

Or is the real problem just because pine needles are nutrient poor and/or starve th soil of nutrients as they break down?

The growth retardant will dosappear eventually. I suspect you're right in that needles are likely to rob nitrogen as they're pretty woody-looking things by the time they fall. It's a slow process, but if you pile them up and forget them for long enough, perhaps with the odd libation of pee to help them along the way, they will break down eventually.

somebody gave me the idea of boiling some of the needles with cloves and cinnamon sticks to make a lovely smelling fabric spray...might give that a go

I am planning on using pine needles as my path mulch, I can collect bags full from my inlaws' woods, my understanding is that they take an age to break down, and until they have done so they are a growth suppresent. I suspect the couch won't care though.

If it stops the couch, amphibian, please let us all know, using capital letters !  ;D

Using them for a path seems like a good idea to me

Would leylandi leaves mulch in the same way (for strawbs and/or growth suppressant)? Ive got loads of the stuff.

I believe so

Its a fallacy that real treas are sprayed to hold the needles, as a Forester I was once a member of the British Christmas Tree Growers Association and attended many meetings. I never met a member who sprayed the trees to retain needles.
They may well be sprayed early in the year to control aphids but I believe sprays are used much less now than they were.