This spring I visited a home that had recently been mulched and was shocked at how deep the mulch was and how little preparation went into the job.
Weeds that had been covered in mulch poked through and the mulch was easily four to five inches deep.
I recommend carrying a soil knife and removing perennial weeds, such as Dandelion, down to the root before mulching.
This garden should not have been mulched; the time and expense should have gone into weeding.
Deep mulch leads to unhealthy plants and looks unnatural. On some jobs, I have to remove deep, old mulch before applying new.
Once a garden is established an inch of mulch is all you need.
Benefits of light mulching include:
- Mulch won’t require yearly turning.
- Oxygen can easily enter the soil.
- Mulched over tree bark won’t become an entry point for insects, disease, and rodents.
- Water easily filters through.
- Less mulch looks more natural, like a coating of leaves on the forest floor.
- Plant roots grow into the soil instead of growing into mulch that quickly dries.
Whether you’re a contractor or a homeowner try not applying mulch one year and see the difference it makes. Your plants will be healthier with significantly less work and expense.
Below is a landscape I mulched this spring by applying just enough mulch to do the job. No more. No less.
Spread less mulch for a more healthy landscape and sometimes you don’t need to add any mulch at all.
Comments
2 responses to “Spread Less Mulch For a More Healthy Landscape”
My unbelievable story of landscapers mulching is after I told them to kill the Bishop’s Weed (Snow on the Mountain) before ever thinking about mulching, instead they tilled it up and mulched over the tilled area after planting close to 100 plants in that area. Needless to say in a very short time the mulch was turning green with Bishop’s Weed and left in my hands to maintain it. What a fun summer that was. Now three years later after my careful care there is no more Bishop’s Weed and the plants are doing well, a lot of which would not have been my choice of plants, but I’m not paid the big bucks to design and select plants, just take care of them later.
It sounds like par for the course for many of the landscapers out there. I’m still trying to find a way to show I’m different than most out there to prospective clients.
I saw Bishops Goutweed, Aegopodium podagraria ‘Variegatum’ a few times in my career and luckily never had to remove it. There’s a stand of it that’s not variegated on the side of the road a couple of miles from me.
To maintain a garden the right way is an art. It takes years to watch plants growing and experimenting with what works and what doesn’t. It takes years for your style of garden maintenance to develop as well.