I am certainly not a 5-1-1 pro.... I just mixed up my first batch a couple weeks ago to use this year (and I too found everything at Lowes and Home Depot - no one store had everything), but I work for a firm that does native plant restoration and I know a bit about mulch, so here are my 2 cents.
Pine bark is a very common mulch because pine forests grow in a lot of places and pine is a widely used commercial wood (and there is a lot of pine bark made as a byproduct). The main benefit of using composted pine bark is that it holds moisture well and it helps improve soils as it decomposes.
We specify bark mulch over wood chip mulch when we have drier or otherwise poor native soils. We specify uncomposted wood chip mulch when we have more moist native soils with more organic matter.
When we do specifications for planting mulch and want to use bark mulch, we generally specify "composted conifer bark mulch." In our part of the world, you can't find pine bark in bulk because there are no pine trees, but we have an abundance of fir trees and hemlock trees. I don' think the species of conifer is as important as the fact that the bark is at least lightly composted and has the correct particle size. Bark mulch usually comes as "fine" or "medium. I would say you want a "fine" bark mulch of any conifer species over a "medium" bark of the purported "correct" species, so if your hemlock mulch is the right size, I'd say use that with confidence!
Watch out...you do not want "pine bark fines." This is sold as a soil conditioner and is not the same as "fine pine bark" or "fine composted bark mulch". If you use this your 5-1-1 will be a gloppy mess.
The cedar mulch may also work if it is sufficiently composted, but a lot of time cedar mulch is sold in a more raw form. You can kind of tell by smelling the mulch, it should smell a bit like mushrooms or fungus, and if you rub it in your hand it should leave streaks. If it does not, it is not composted.
Also, you don't have to buy mulch it in opaque bags. Most areas have soil supply or landscape suppliers that sell composted bark mulch in bulk. You can go to the yard and see the pile before you buy (although most places only sell this in cubic yard quantities, so bring a pick up!
The ProMix is a good product. I potted up all my starts in ProMix HP with Mycrorrizae and plan to put these plants in 5-1-1 in 5 gallon buckets. The main downside of ProMix is it is about 5x to 8x more expensive as home mixed 5-1-1 and the BX does not drain like the 5-1-1 is suppose to do, which is why I went with the HP version.
I have not used the other products.
Good luck!
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