Mulches

[robmarston]

Dear all. I've been digging some rather large beds in the garden and will be having fun planting them this year and I'm beginning to think of what the best mulch for them would be. I will need to be able to walk among the shrubs and flowers without always getting muddy. I will also need easy access to the soil for digging, moving and planting. Of course I also need weed suppressant ability too and will need to liberally spread manure each year without having to take it all up. And cost is also an issue. I was thinking of bark chippings but believe these suck nutrients out of the soil. Any ideas?


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[WendyC]

I mulch my beds each year with homemade compost. Other than a few greedy plants, e.g. roses you don't need to manure each year. In fact I think you'll end up with very soft growing plants which aphids will love. I have used bark before. You can scrape it back easily if you need to plant something. I prefer the look of "minibark" for beds. I think there are only problems with using nitrogen if it is dug in, but I could be wrong.

[alldigging]

Bark will be fine. Feed the soil when you plant. Don't stack it around plant stems.

If you really want to keep the weeds down then you will need to weed completely first and then add a thick layer or mulch.
You could lay wads of newspaper under the bark but it's probably not needed. You will still get weeds though. Each time you disturb the soil you'll activate seeds and they will grow in the mulch too. But they'll be really easy to pull out.

[out in the cold]

Do you have a sawmill close by?

I work in a school and get access to "shavings" that have been passed through a planing machine, so we can get long strips of paper thin wood from skimming other parts.

Or you could use straw.

[senor coop]

I use spent hops from a local brewery, they're a bit cloggy at first but once dried a bit seem to do the trick, not sure if the slugs will be attracted by the smell though?

[robmarston]

Wendy C, very interesting about the 'soft growing plants'. I've never heard of that before. Can you tell me more about it? Is over feeding the cause? How do I tell if I've done this, what do the plants look like?


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