Bark chippings and fruit bushes

[Sharon44]

Hi,

I acquired an allotment last year and planted various fruit bushes, i.e. gooseberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, whitecurrants, redcurrants, rhubarb, strawberries, blueberries and cranberries.

I spent most of my time weeding, so this year I have put down some thin weed control fabric and I am thinking of laying down some bark chippings over the entire fruit bed.

I have purchased some bark chippings from Wickes, but would like to know if it safe to put them around all my fruit bushes and if so, can I put them right up to the fruit bushes?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards

Sharon

[Garden_Chris]

I believe so.

I've used a roughly four inch layer of bark chippings around my grapes, blueberry and apple trees over the past year and they all seem happy and healthy.

I'm pretty certain that acidic plants will value certain types of bark more so than others, yet I'm under the impression using a generic garden centre bark isn't detrimental to plants.

[roitelet]

Pine bark is acid so I only put that round the blueberries.

[Garden_Chris]

Pine bark is acid so I only put that round the blueberries.

That's the one.
Christmas tree branches/needles can be shredded to be used as a mulch around blueberries too.

[Aberdeenplotter]

I've done it in the last couple of weeks. A 6" mulch over membrane

[WendyC]

Great minds think alike. I'm about to put up a fruit cage over my fruit ( flat packed in the garage at the moment) and am thinking a bark mulch would keep it easier to maintain inside. Also keep the soil moist as we're a "drought area". Last time I wanted some Homebase's Minichip bales were quite cost effective.

[bearded bloke]

I built a fruit cage last year,laid weed membrane cut slits & planted through,then mulched with 100mm of GC bark chippings right up to plants & almost all was well Almost because the raspberry plants are varieties that are cut back completely & grow new stems each year,none to easy with the membrane in place

[Scarlet]

I done the same a couple of years ago. I used a weed membrane, (layers of newspapers beneath) and then wood chippings from my local tree surgeon on my gooseberries, black and red currants. I've had no problems yet and it's saved a load of work and time.

[greenjelly]

When I had my allotment last year several other allotmenteers used to swear by this form of mulch & pile up bark chippings around their fruit bushes. They seemed to get good results, however, I have since read that putting too thick a layer of bark chippings cause the roots of raspberrys to stay on or near the surface of the soil. Raspberrys have very small & shallow roots and too thick a mulch encourages them to stay near the surface. This means that in times of drought the roots arent encouraged to search for available water beneath the soil surface and doesnt produce as strong and healthy plants which also effects fruit production.

I use straw as mulch which does the same job but doesnt affect the acidity of the soil and because it isnt as 'smothering' as bark encourages the roots to go deeper.

Greenjeely