{"id":4165,"date":"2023-09-04T10:15:49","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T18:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=4165"},"modified":"2023-09-04T10:15:49","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T18:15:49","slug":"mulch-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/mulch-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"Mulch Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>No one has to mulch their garden and there are plenty of reasons\u2014read excuses\u2014not to do so. Suppose you contract with a mulch merchant to dump a big load of the stuff in a corner of your driveway. The load always looks much bigger than you expected and suddenly you have a very visible reminder of your gardening responsibilities.
\n\tIf you have the money, of course, you can pay someone to spread the mulch all over your garden beds, not to mention around the bases of your trees and shrubs. This saves labor, but too often the mulch layer is too deep, burying some of the smaller plants, and the mulch spreaders use the \u201cvolcano\u201d technique, applying the mulch so that it hugs the trunks of trees and shrubs. It is a cozy arrangement, but one that promotes disease. The \u201cdoughnut\u201d method, which leaves space between the mulch and the tree trunk, is better\u2014if you remember to remind the mulch spreaders.
\n\tIf you don\u2019t want to spread mulch, you can always claim that it hurts your back, which is absolutely true. Lugging multiple three cubic-yard bags of mulch is taxing, as is spreading the mulch once you get the bags to the garden destination. This happens even if you load the bags onto a trusty garden cart or wheel barrow.
\n\tWhen it comes to mulch\u2019s capacity to induce backaches, the worst situation is bagged mulch that has not been kept under cover at the garden center. Lifting and spreading wet mulch is like lugging cement.
\n\tWhen I run out of excuses for not mulching, I generally put the bags on my little red wagon and move them close to the target area. At the end of the day\u2019s mulching adventure, my back always aches. For unknown reason, mulching also seems to give me heartburn.
\n\tChristopher Lloyd, the late, great British garden maven, thought mulch was deplorable, and I doubt that he ever spread any. His beef was with the appearance of the bark shreds, cocoa bean hulls and other standard mulch materials. Lloyd even had a spirited ongoing debate with his fellow renowned gardener, Beth Chatto, on the subject. Ultimately she stuck to her guns and so did he.
\n\tOf course Lloyd\u2019s beds and borders were so thickly planted that weeds would have a hard time getting through. He also had minions to do the weeding.
\n\tIf you are an individual with neither minions nor several large children who can be coerced into helping, why spread mulch at all?
\n\tThe best publicized advantage to mulching is that it helps keep down weeds. This is true, though a few weeds will creep in anyway and require removal. Still, I find that those stray marauders are shallowly rooted and fairly easy to remove.
\n\tMulch insulates the ground, holding in moisture when it is dry, and allowing monsoon-type rain the chance to filter through an additional layer before sinking into the ground. It keeps the soil at a more consistent temperature, which is better for plant roots. It also looks somewhat better than bare ground, giving gardens a finished look. This is nice if you have chosen to install fewer plants than Christopher Lloyd.
\n\tOrganic mulches, whether shreds, chips or hulls, also eventually break down, enriching the soil. Of course, the flip side of that benefit is that mulch has to be reapplied periodically. If you have a large garden this can be a bit like tuning a very large pipe organ. When you get to the end of the job, it is time to start all over again.
\n\tMy mulching system is very gradual, to save my back, my pocketbook and my patience. I generally buy four, three cubic-foot bags of mulch every two weeks and apply them to areas of the garden that have recently been weeded. If I am lucky, the mulch application also comes soon after the kind of gentle rainstorm that lovingly moistens the ground. If that has not happened, I mulch anyway. There is only so much you can control.
\n\tOnly my plants thank me for mulching, and they do so by perking up if they are drooping, and flourishing thereafter. These days I thank myself by sinking into the new \u201czero gravity reclining chair\u201d that a generous friend gave me for my birthday. Combine that with a couple of Tylenol, and eventually I perk up as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one has to mulch their garden and there are plenty of reasons\u2014read excuses\u2014not to do so. Suppose you contract with a mulch merchant to dump a big load of the stuff in a corner of your driveway. The load always looks much bigger than you expected and suddenly you have a very visible reminder … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[2918,2921,589,12,2919,2920],"class_list":["post-4165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-bark-shreds","tag-garden-practicies","tag-groundcovers","tag-mulch","tag-organic-gardening","tag-weed-reduction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4167,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165\/revisions\/4167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}