Yay! A vote for pine shavings!
Lyn, I think it has a lot to do with how thick you spread them, how well they work on keeping the weeds down.
As for leaves, yep, going out and gathering them is indeed time consuming. Here I'm lucky enough the leaves come to me! I have bags from my next door neighbor I'm working my way through, and just today the mowing crew bagged up three huge bags from the front yard for me.
I had a worry earlier that I had put leaves down on a bed without watering thoroughly first; the leaves can keep moisture from penetrating, and here we've been dry enough that would be seriously counterproductive! But I checked and it's nice and wet feeling under there; I was relieved.
