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Bucks County Pa. is the center of the mulching world so I wrote this article for local residents to help them in their quest for real organic mulches.

Animal Manures. Historically, manure has been available from farms in bulk, but some are packaged for retail sales. Farm manure, when aged a few years will have no odor, but cows do NOT digest seeds, so the especially hardy weed seeds will be introduced to your soil. Plain rabbit manure is especially rich in the big three elements, Nitrogen, Potassium, and Phosphorous. Don't use chicken manure which is low in N-P-K and has too much ammonia. The bad odor indicates it is foul! (punny, huh?) Manures are often dried or dehydrated and granulated to be sold for soil amending, mulching, or fertilizer purposes. Still, weed seeds are often introduced with manure. Included in retail packaging are manure from cow, horse, sheep, poultry and zoological (zoo) animals. Composts. This is an old term with new meanings as compost technology and new products become available. Although usually not packaged for retail use, grass clippings, leafmold and used mushroom composts are available. There's the added benefit here of knowing you're helping recycling. Composted municipal sludge. Sometimes available from your town or city government, even for "free," also given trade names like Earthlife, Comtil and TechnaGro. Composts containing municipal garbage, paper pulp, yard wastes and many other by-products help reduce the amount of landfill necessary. Again, this is helpful recycling. Environmental laws across the United States have given rise to composting technology that continues to advance and bring new products. Hulls, cobs, shells. This group of by-products, to a large degree from the food industry, includes such mulches as cottonseed, buckwheat, cocoa-bean, peanut or rice hulls, crushed corn cobs, spent hops, tobacco stems and similar products. All have been used extensively for mulch and are usually inexpensive. The disadvantage is that availability is typically limited to a local area. Sphagnum peat moss/muck peat. These terms are often misunderstood. Sphagnum peat moss comes from sphagnum and similar mosses. It contains long fibers which resist decomposition. It is available from Canada, Russia, Ireland and much of Europe. Note - Spanish Moss which hangs from trees in the swamps of the southeastern United States and all the way down to South America, is NOT moss, it's actually an air-plant, or epiphyte. Chiggers, or redbugs, live in Spanish Moss, so maybe using this free mulch wouldn't be such a great idea... Use free grass clippings, bark, leaves, and the like, instead. Muck peat originates from well decomposed plant material that once thrived in swamps. Cattails, reeds, sedges and other water plants become muck peat. While sphagnum peat moss is usually quite acidic, muck peat is usually neutral to slightly alkaline, is well decomposed and is dark brown or black with almost no fibers. Muck peat is available from sources in many states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Maryland. It is fine in texture, so it dries quickly and has the disadvantage of being blown away by high winds when used as a mulch. It, too, is often locally available at a reasonable price. Muck peat makes a far better organic soil amendment for rocky and sandy soil than a mulch. Pine needles. The needles of pine trees as well as shredded cones make an excellent mulch particularly for other evergreens and plants that thrive in acidic soils. Pine needle mulch, formerly available only in the southern states, is becoming available in other regions. The adavantage of this mulch is the acidity and pH adjusting capability for overly alkaline ("basic") high pH soils. Soils derived from limestone, because of the calcium carbonate (CaCO3) sea shells, are very alkaline, certainly well above a pH of 7, as much as 8 and higher. Straw. Straw and hay are used for winter protection of perennials, strawberries and small plants. If left as a permanent mulch, you'll need to add additional nitrogen (one pound of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet). This material decomposes readily. read this as, this material has to be added to every year for certain. Weed seed can be introduced from straw, hay and grain crop residues also. Salt hay, available along coastal states, makes the best hay mulch, very acceptable. Wood products. For simplicity, we will group all wood products into a) shredded, chip or chunk bark, b) wood chips or shavings and c) waste wood. Shredded, chip, or chunk bark. This material is by far THE MOST POPULAR landscape mulch due to its appearance, serviceability and cost. Included are shredded hardwood and cypress bark, chipped and chunk pine, and fir and eucalyptus barks. Wood chips or shavings. These have become available very inexpensively through utility companies and are usually not available in packaged form. You can make your own if you have a chipper-shredder for the downed trees and limbs on your property. Since these mulches consist, along with sawdust, of more wood than bark, they decompose rapidly and should be reapplied annually while also supplemented with fertilizer at the rate of one pound of actual nitrogen per 1,000 square feet of mulched area as mentioned above. Waste wood. Materials such as used pallets and other wood pieces that normally would have been taken to a landfill are now shredded and metal objects are removed. The resulting chips are colored to match pine, hardwood, cypress or any other mulch product on the market. This material also decomposes faster than bark and requires the addition of nitrogen fertilizer along with more frequent reapplication. It's good recycling however. If you've read this far, now you know all you'll ever need to about mulch and "mulching." Pat yourself on the back!
About the Author

Bill has been raising trees for 30 years at his Doylestown Pa. Farm and has a web site http://www.digatree.com