Re: CULT: wood chip mulch
- Subject: Re: CULT: wood chip mulch
- From: J* B*
- Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 07:03:15 -0500
From: James Brooks <hirundo@tricon.net>
At 05:20 AM 3/20/99 -0800, you wrote:
>From: Linda Mann <lmann@icx.net>
>Remember the discussion about slime molds being predatory on bacteria?
>Maybe the wood chips result in more bacteria being eaten and fewer being
>born. & maybe there are more bacterial predators around.
>
>I'm going to have to try some more experiments.... whee more ways to
>kill irises!
Linda -
By wood chips I mean what you get from those roadside places that sell
mulch by the truckload. I buy the darker, semi-composted mulch.
I only spread down an inch or two, around the plants if I've already
planted. This year I will be more careful to mound the soil up under the
rhizome on new plantings, instead of just plugging them in. I have a lot of
heavy clay (adobe) soil, and my intent was to make the weeding easier
(yes!) and to keep the soil cooler and retain water down in the soil
better. The added benefit over the winter was the complete lack of frost
boiling, whereas a couple of control beds that I did not mulch have the
rhizomes standing on their roots right now, if they did manage to root. I
will go back and mulch those now, after weeding and putting down Surflan.
Some of the rhizomes appeared to nestle down into the mulch during the
winter, and as I weed these beds I scrape the mulch away to expose the
rhizome to the sun, trying to be careful not to make a depression that
collects water.
So far (knocking on wood mulch) the only case of rot I had in the mulch was
a single Louisiana! My suspicion is that it actually croaked during the
several months droughth we had just when they were planted in August, and
what I have is a decomposing dead rhizome.
My biggest mistake was in the Japanese bed, where, through ignorance, I
planted them like tall bearded, instead of burying them down in the mulch a
couple of inches (6 inches of mulch here). About 40 percent of my new
plantings are not yet showing any green, and it looks like I will have to
reorder these. Japanese take three time the work. I have to acidize all the
water with Miracid or wetable sulphur, because my water comes from the well
and limestone strata. The water has to be trucked to the beds any time it
doesn't rain for three days, where I have gallon milk jugs with expensive
little drip faucets over each plant. Three times the work as bearded, but
they sell for about three times as much.
James Brooks
Jonesborough, TN
hirundo@tricon.net
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