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Dear Sean,
I couldn't agree with you more. Mulching with bark
in cold, wet climates may not be a good idea. But, here in dry, hot Mallorca, we
shred just about everything from our garden, including our Opuntia
ficus-indica, and the resulting mulch has
done wonders for improving the soil.
Regards Andrew Beith
----- Original Message -----
From:
s*@gimcw.org
To: m*@ucdavis.edu
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 10:01
PM
Subject: Re: Mulch is Bad!
I agree that mulch is not the panacea that it is often touted
to be. But it does have its uses. I garden on very heavy alluvial
clay that has been abused and badly treated long before my arrival.
Organic mulch has been a great boon to stabilizing this soil's life and
balance. Most urban gardens in the areas I've dealt with are somewhat
similar.
I have often encourages those who purchase newly built homes
(or those that have had extensive renovation by contractors) to mulch heavily
as soon as possible - even if they are not planning to get to the garden for a
while. The mulch helps create a natural stratification in the disturbed
soil structure, introduce micro-organisms, balance fertility, etc. I
heard of many occasions when soil is tested and shown to contain metals and
other questionable substances, promising to cost big bucks for
remediation. Inevitably put on the back burner (due to cost), heavy
organic mulching often performs the remediation in the meantime.
In
these cases I seldom suggest purchasing bagged products sold at great
cost. Using whatever organic material is easily (and cheaply) had
locally is the best route - from local leaves and lawn clipping, tree company
chippings, to other bio-refuse from local agriculture or green
industry.
The recent fad in dyed mulch (jet black and rust-orange
colors available!) is appalling. And those who fancy products that
decompose only VERY SLOWLY miss the point entirely (these are also the most
likely to shed water, leaving the soil beneath without moisture to
'retain').
Several have recently encouraged mineral mulches (gravel,
decomposed granite, etc.) which is useful for plants that prefer perfect
drainage around their crowns or are native to stony, scree soils. Many
soils around the Mediterranean seem to be of this type. In fact, most
soils of that region that I've been able to inspect up close are remarkably
stony, poor, and perfectly drained, especially compared with California (which
tends to have richer, heavier soils). I also question how 'green' it is
to use quarried rock/gravel from distant locations (sometimes other
countries).
I've always wished I'd brought one of those collapsible
shovels with me when traveling abroad, so I could dig the soil on a whim to
really understand it better. Many generalizations made by garden
authorities stem from whatever soil types most commonly encountered by the
author.
In stable environments, weeds tend to be less of a problem, and
soil left bare remains just that - bare. In my own situation, on rich
clay that retains moisture well (until it finally dries out), with a equally
rich weed seed load, unwanted sprouting species can overwhelm in a matter of
days (hours?!) even the most vigorous intended garden subjects. As
stated, mature landscapes create their own mulching and overshadow and out
produce many weedy types. This is the goal in creating a landscape
'system', for it truly is a living system that ultimately must find its own
balance and equilibrium.
SeÃn O.
http://about.me/seanaohara
On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 3:29 PM, B. Garcia <p*@gmail.com>
wrote:
I never really got the concept of covering every square inch with mulch
by commercial contractors who are more about putting things in than growing
a garden. In my own garden, the plants really make their own mulch. Under
the Fremontodendron for instance the spent flowers, capsules and leaves are
heavy enough it keeps out invading weeds (mostly). It's also deep enough
that it's spongy underneath. Under the sages they tend to pile up their own
mulch as well as the Echium.
This article sort of assumes that mulch is *entirely* bad and I think
that's my problem with it. With new plants it really does work to conserve
moisture once we go into the dry months, but I tend not to religiously apply
it, and I actually like seeing bare sand (I did have to do some weeding, but
then again I have a garden, not a chunk of unspoiled pristine chaparral. If
one visits the chaparral here, there's generally lots of open bare ground
with a few herbaceous plants and under each shrub is usually their own
self-made piles of mulch.
I really don't like the deep bark beds that I see people put in. It
seems to be a substitute for adding in plants to cover up all that ground.
As my own garden fills in, the need for weeding decreases since the plants
shade out most of the weeds (except that insidious kikuyu grass).
On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 3:20 PM, Joseph Seals <t*@yahoo.com> wrote:
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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 <p*@gmail.com> wrote:
From:
B. Garcia <p*@gmail.com>
Subject: Mulch is
Bad!
To: "Medit-Plants Plants" <M*@ucdavis.edu>
Date: Tuesday,
April 5, 2011, 1:50 PM
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