|
Hello to all,
As Rowan says, it is very un-Aprilish in Western
Europe these days. Not my cup of tea as with the very warm weather flowering
goes way too fast.
Now back to mulch:
In my opinion and experience in Madrid, Spain and
Cleveland, Ohio, mulch is usually a good thing, for most plants, except
for those that dwell in rocky places. As Seán and others have already mentioned,
it is very important in newly planted gardens to help keep the weeds down and to
create a "natural" profile of the soil. And as Joseph has mentioned, too, the
point is not to use mulch as a landscape feature, as it is now in many parts of
the US and, more rcently, in Spain.
Some ideas that most of us gardeners know, but many
people out there (usually just yard owners, not gardeners) don't
know:
1. Mulch should try to re-create the leaf/twig
layer that is present in most areas with natural vegetation. This is the number
one principle for using mulch.
2. Mulch must decay.
3. Much should not be thicker than 5 cm or 2". Only
in certain favourable spots in natural landscapes leaf/twig litter is thicker
than that.
4. It should be considered a temporary tool to
contain weed growth and to protect bare soil until the new plantings cover the
soil completely.
This last point is also part of the reason why
mulch has become a landscape feature rather than a tool: to cover a large garden
bed with plants is usually more expensive, both for installation and
maintenance, than to cover it with mulch. Cover it with the amounts of mulch
that are used nowadays in many places (parking strip mulch volcanoes, thicker
than a foot!), and eventually, layer over layer, nothing grows on that thick
crust. Perfect!, many people think: "I don't have to weed it but I don't have to
pave it either". Then, season after season, mulch surfaces became a standard
look for a yard (not a garden) for many people, as standard as a concrete
driveway, and so they want it. Unfortunately, very often the standard creates
the trend: an ocean of mulch with a few perennials and
shrubs sprinkled here and there. If you are a gardener, you don't like that
look. But, if you don't care much for gardening and you just want your yard to
look "neat", tons of thick mulch then don't sound bad.
In my own yard, I have not intentionally mulched
with wood chips for the last 6 years, when I did many new
plantings. I just don't pick up most of the litter my plants create and
that is plenty of mulch. Now most beds are so dense in plants that mulch is only
necessary when I redo a certain section. And then I use whatever is available
from my own yard (pine needles, clippings from perennials, etc.). But, of
course, there is always weeding to be done, specially this time of the year,
much less in summer.
Except for very rocky dry areas, usually bare
soil is not natural, so it is good to mulch. But a 8" mulch
layer isn't natural either, and creates problems in our
gardens.
Cheers,
Fran
Miraflores de la Sierra, Madrid, Spain
----- Original Message -----
From:
r*@quickbeam.plus.com
To: m*@ucdavis.edu
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 9:26
AM
Subject: Re: 'Mulch is Bad!' - not
Hi folks
Mulching is great in cold wet climates too,
because even in a climate that's cold and wet overall it's sometimes hot and
dry, and because when it's wet the rain will wash the soil away unless it's
protected.
But I entirely agree with Sean that the long-term aim is to
start something which ends up covering the ground and mulching itself, and so
becomes self-sustaining. Until then we need mulch to protect the soil.
All the best, Rowan Adams
Ventnor, Isle of Wight,
Britain
(currently very un-Aprilish weather - I chose to garden in the
shady bits yeterday because it was too hot in the sun!)
On
Thursday, Apr 7, 2011, at 07:07 Europe/London, Andrew Beith wrote:
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: Sean A. O'Hara
To:
Medit-Plants
listserv
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.
Seán
O.
http://about.me/seanaohara
On
Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 3:29 PM, B. Garcia <paroxytone@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 <thegardenguru@yahoo.com>
wrote:
<image.tiff>
|
