Re: mulch

Dear Medit-planters

I use pine needles and find the results very acceptable on our acid loam and shale soil. Obviously it is slow to decompose so I use it under shrubs and on other numerous 'no dig' areas of garden. I find some small bulbs, particularly Cyclamen repandum and Littonia modesta do well where the emerging leaves and stems can scramble around under the needles before they emerge. When put through my shredder the needles and pine tree clippings are put on the general garden where they perform well giving a coarse mulch which lasts, keeps the soil shaded and cool and replicates the rough woodland mulch that many plants such as peonies seem to enjoy. Such a mulch lasts 3 years or more. I use some pelletised chicken manure to feed plants set among the mulch but I have been informed by a local soil scientist (Kevin Handrick) that the nitrogen uptake of this very slowly decomposing mulch does not cause nitrogen depletion as a finer, more rapidly decomposing mulch might do.

Of seaweed I have limited experience. many years ago when I was learning the gardeners craft from two old and experienced women gardeners who employed me as a weeding boy they used to gather seaweed from the shore and spread it directly on their garden. This was dry seaweed from high upon the shore and not fresh from the tide line. It tasted and smelled salty but I guess it would have been rinsed by the rains to some extent. There are farmers and gardeners in France, England, Ireland and elsewhere who use seaweed as fertiliser, and from what I have seen in books and read they appear to cart it from the shore and use it at once. Others may have more direct knowledge of this than I.

regards

trevor n
Trevor Nottle
Garden Historian, Garden Writer, Designer, Consultant
WALNUT HILL, 5 Walker Street, Crafers, SA 5152 AUSTRALIA
Tel./ Fax. 61 8 83394210
















































   



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