Mulch And Much More

What Is Mulch?

Mulch is so much more than a silly sounding word! It can be defined as a layer of pretty much anything placed - and left - covering the soil. It can be a form of matting, a loose ornamental material such as gravel or bark, or a layer goodness giving compost.

Mulching is something of a garden panacea as it can fulfil so many different objectives with different mulches fulfilling one or more of the following:

• The suppression of weed seed germination, or solid mulch perennial weed growth.
• The provision of plant food as organic mulches rot down
• Improvement of soil structure
• A protective walkable safe surface for easy gardening.
• A low cost easy to manage method of covering the soil that can be planted through with shrubs or ground cover.
• and on top of it mulch should look good and involves no digging!

Why Mulch?

Different mulches have different strengths, but the rule of thumb is that mulch will provide a weed suppressing layer over the soil that looks attractive as well as locking in soil moisture for plants that might be planted through it.Mulches are usually used around plants, but often the procedure can be used to create paths or low maintenance gravel scree areas.

Before mulching first clear your soil of weeds, tidy existing plants and fork or rake soil level, than place an even layer of mulch 7 to 12 cm thick around freshly planted or existing shrubs – simple or what?

Types Of Mulch And Their Pros And Cons

Bark chip mulch: ideal where access is required, being great for cheap all weather garden paths or around play features. Bark can also as a means of keeping down weeds while shrubs and ground cover get going; simply dig out existing weeds, level soil, and spread 7 – 10cm evenly.

Wood chip mulch: usually used more for paths and play areas as opposed to beds. Permeable membrane : Woven Mypex can be pegged down over level soil to create a total barrier that allows water to drain through to the soil. Often used in nurseries as a functional ground cover, or covered with gravel or in ornamental scree beds where it can be cut through and planted up with spreading plants.

Impermeable membrane: Solid thick plastic can be used as a mulch but it wont allow drainage and looks dreadful. The only place plastic might be used is temporarily to kill of weeds when establishing beds or borders.

Mushroom compost: Ideally part rotted mushroom compost can be spread around established border plants every 3 – 5 years. This mulch will not only put off annual weed seeds while it breaks down but will provide a feed as well as improve top soil quality by adding dark crumbly humus.

Well rotted farmyard manure: As above but even more valuable for its feeding and soil improving abilities. How valuable depends on how long it has been breaking down. You want dark crumbly stuff free from weed roots and wood chip if possible.

Garden compost: this is the stuff that comes form your heap or tower compost bin. It’s a pure case of recycling and its good for soil conditioning but less so for weed suppressing. Try and use only really well rotted stuff and maybe fork it in a little if it looks a bit ugly!

Leaf mould: Gathered autumn leaves can be collected in chicken wire towers or black bags and rotted down over a year or two producing an excellent form of humus. This leaf mould is dark and crumbly which is ideal for mulching around woodland plants such as ferns or woodland herbs such as Hosta or astilbe. Leaf mould will keep down weeds and make soil instantly more crumbly and workable.

Gravel or granite chip: usually laid over a solid membrane such as mypex, such aggregate mulches are often seen as ‘permanent’ low cost alternatives to paving, allowing for traffic as well as total weed suppression yet also giving the opportunity for the gardener to pull back gravel, cut through membrane and create a planting pit in which ground cover or shrubs can be planted into. This must be the ultimate in lazy gardening!

The Mechanics Of Mulching

The most important thing when mulching is to cover the ground, and to do this your original soil level must be as close as possible to the finished mulch level, that way when you put down the mulch you don’t get areas that’s to thick or to thin.

Also remember that if your mulch is doubling up as a soil improver then go for a quality well rotted manure or compost and what ever you do make sure it is weed free!The same goes from homemade garden or household waste compost, which is often better used forked or dug in to the soil.

If you are using a membrane then ensure that it is well pegged down and hidden from view and be aware that in years too come it might come back to haunt you as tufts of membrane will invariably surface from time to time; also if you want to dig up a membrane covered area it can be a bugger to dig out!

© Matt Hewes
All articles are written by freelance horticulturist Matthew Hewes and can be re-printed or replicated by permission only. If you wish to use findmeplants copy on your website then this will be considered in exchange for a link and inclusion of the author’s name. Matthew Hewes works as a freelance garden writer and is happy to write gardening articles to order.

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