Re: Mulch is Bad!

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Overall, it makes a lot of sense.

 

But it starts with a bad assumption.

 

I am a firm believer in mulch.  Yet I teach my hort students that "mulch" is a working concept, not a design concept.

 

That is to say, I recommend mulching as a special covering after planting new plants (and only immediately around the new plants), over a working vegetable garden and upon the ground of a working orchard.  I do not, however, recommend mulching an entire landscape.  There are, indeed, many things wrong with the latter, many as pointed out in the "Au Jardin" article.

 

I teach my landscape design students that on plan, as well as eventually in the actual landscape/garden, the designer must cover every square inch of the plan -- with either hardscape or plants.  The plants for "covering" (along with the basic plants) can be spreading shrubs, trailing or tightly clumping perennials or anything traditionally known as "groundcovers".  The hardscaping can be almost anything creative.  A bag of "mulch" is not part of the design.

 

I'm familiar with the practice of mulching a winter garden from my years in northern Wisconsin.  I never thought much of it.

 

I'm still wondering, though, where and when the practice of mulching an entire California landscape started.  What a maintenance, aesthetic and cultural tragedy.

 

Joe

--- On Tue, 4/5/11, B. Garcia <paroxytone@gmail.com> wrote: