Thanks for saying it first. Don’t be a sucker, don’t ever use that free stuff for any horticultural application. Always use bagged mulch that you pay for.
Thanks, OKSooner. After I posted, I felt sort of bad since I wasn’t dissing the poster. I was simply pointing out some concerns and issues we have dealt with. I should have written that being in a relative urban county, needles and such are common in a lot of our area. However, every county (the most beautiful, pristine and nice) can still have a fungus or tree disease that weakened/or killed the tree. If that is in the mulch, it will spread not only to your tree.. but every tree around it.