A mulch is any material spread on the ground to protect it. Its purpose is to conserve moisture, retard erosion, suppress weeds, moderate extremes in soil temperature, look tidy, require little to no maintenance, and as a bonus, protect tree trunks from your lawn mower. As it breaks down, mulch leaches nutrients into your soil, improving its structure, and enlarging its capacity for storing water and nutrients. In the vernacular of Frankenstein’s monster, “Mulch good.”
Mulch is an ideal cover for small or isolated areas. Get it in 50# bags or by the truckload for your beds, paths, and around plants. It is easy to use and the results are immediate.
Spread mulch around new plants whenever you plant them, but in established beds, wait until mid-spring, when the soil has warmed. Before applying it, clean the soil surface by pulling or spraying unwanted …show more content…
(Don’t confuse pine bark nuggets, which are a mulch, with pine bark mulch, which is intended primarily to be tilled into the soil as a conditioner.) Old dark, dried, half-rotted sawdust and woodchips of all species, including oak and pine, make good mulch. If you till them in, however, add one cup of 10-10-10 per 100 square feet to help them decompose.
Green sawdust can form dense mats that prevent rainwater from seeping into the ground. Do not use it as mulch.
Green woodchips make good mulch, but if you are concerned that they may leach nitrogen from your soil, sprinkle one cup of 10-10-10 per 100 square feet over the mulch. Do not till green woodchips or sawdust into planted soil. Until it has thoroughly composted, wood will borrow nitrogen from the soil, starving your plants. To keep grass clippings from matting, shred them before applying.
Compost weedy manure and yard waste (grass clippings, leaves, twigs) to kill weed seeds before you apply them to your beds. Or, use them only in deep shade where the seeds will germinate
Mulch is an ideal cover for small or isolated areas. Get it in 50# bags or by the truckload for your beds, paths, and around plants. It is easy to use and the results are immediate.
Spread mulch around new plants whenever you plant them, but in established beds, wait until mid-spring, when the soil has warmed. Before applying it, clean the soil surface by pulling or spraying unwanted …show more content…
(Don’t confuse pine bark nuggets, which are a mulch, with pine bark mulch, which is intended primarily to be tilled into the soil as a conditioner.) Old dark, dried, half-rotted sawdust and woodchips of all species, including oak and pine, make good mulch. If you till them in, however, add one cup of 10-10-10 per 100 square feet to help them decompose.
Green sawdust can form dense mats that prevent rainwater from seeping into the ground. Do not use it as mulch.
Green woodchips make good mulch, but if you are concerned that they may leach nitrogen from your soil, sprinkle one cup of 10-10-10 per 100 square feet over the mulch. Do not till green woodchips or sawdust into planted soil. Until it has thoroughly composted, wood will borrow nitrogen from the soil, starving your plants. To keep grass clippings from matting, shred them before applying.
Compost weedy manure and yard waste (grass clippings, leaves, twigs) to kill weed seeds before you apply them to your beds. Or, use them only in deep shade where the seeds will germinate