Mulch demystified - How to mulch, when to mulch, and what to mulch with.

Because it’s THAT TIME OF YEAR, and I get a fair few questions about mulch, I thought I’d put what I do here. This piece originally appeared in my weekly newsletter.

Mulching can be a bit of a minefield, so here is my attempt at demystifying it.

What is mulch?

The word ‘mulch’ is used in gardening to describe ANYTHING that you put on top of your soil. So that could mean horse manure, or it could mean thick black plastic sheeting. These two things are obviously totally different, so it’s useful to split mulch into two groups: Organic and inorganic.

Organic mulch is a mulch that originally came from something that was alive; manure, grass clippings, shredded bark, compost, shredded newspaper…all these things will decompose over time and be incorporated into your soil by worms.

Inorganic mulch is a mulch that comes from something man-made or which doesn’t break down; plastic sheeting, shredded rubber tyres, stones, landscape fabric. These mulches are used to suppress weeds and/or to give a ‘decorative’ finish to a border but apart from preventing moisture loss, they don’t contribute to the soil structure.

Adding organic material on top of your soil and around your shrubs and trees is generally agreed to be of benefit to them, particularly as it helps to prevent evaporation. Depending on what you use, it can also add nutrients to poor soil, which is generally considered ‘a good thing’ (although NB you may not wish to have ‘rich’ soil if you’re trying to grow plants that thrive on poor ones!) Piling on extra organic material will also build up your flowerbeds, which can tend to ‘sink’ over time. It will also make it harder for weeds to come up and find the light, weakening them, and lastly, but importantly, a dark mulch will just make everything look totally glorious…!

What to use:

The best mulch is your own home-made compost, but most of us don’t have enough of that (if any). If you are buying compost from somewhere please be super-vigilant about its source; the last thing you want is to be applying a mulch made from plant material that contains anything ghastly like weedkiller. Similarly, if you are buying manure, you need to ensure that the animals haven’t been fed on anything that has been treated with herbicide, as this can travel through the bodies of some livestock. I use a mixture of bagged horse manure, which I use around the base of my shrubs, and topsoil (peat-free) which is easy to spread and the easiest option for me with a small area to mulch. My own compost is always spread under my shrubs and trees as and when it becomes available, and I also use my lawn-mowings at the back of my borders.

Mulching rules:

Mulch freely, as and when you want.

Know that it’s easier to mulch in autumn and winter, when there are fewer things in the flower-bed, than it is in spring and summer, when you’ll have to try and avoid tulips and the like.

Know also that the only ‘bad’ time to mulch is when it is very very hot, or very very cold. The reason for this is that a mulch will tend to lock in dryness or cold and amplify it, rather than helping to mitigate. So if you’re wanting to mulch in the heat, then do water first.

I do hope that was helpful!

x Laetitia

Frost protection: keeping your plants warm in cold weather

Statistically it’s more likely to snow in Easter than it is at Christmas, so here are some ideas for protecting any tender plants in your garden.

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

Moving containers in and out of greenhouses, and wrapping everything else in ghostly white fleece for the winter is a time-consuming job, which is why the ordinary gardener might wish to avoid having anything too tender in the border.

Having said this, most of us have one or two things that need attention in order to see them through the winter; obviously anything that advertises itself as frost tender, but also, particularly if you live in cold areas, anything in a container, where the roots are surrounded by cold pot, and then chilly air rather than the warmth of proper ‘underground’, and anything in an exposed area or ‘frost pocket’, where cold air whooshes past, or sits, motionless and unforgiving for long periods.

The preventative measures are well worth the effort. For pots, a layer of old bubble wrap around the sides, secured with duct tape and string will provide extra insulation, and a bit of a pot shuffle, so that all of your containers are grouped together, is a good idea. I am rather Martha Stewarty about it and have a sort of ‘kit bag’ of fleece and bubble wrap with string, ready to go when the forecast warns. Here are details of my cold weather kit.

The other thing is to get the pot bases off the ground with pot feet to avoid waterlogging. I enjoy being pretty over the top with my pot feet - I love them; the cuter the better. Anything frost tender can be wrapped in horticultural fleece (not pretty, but neither are dead plants) until the danger of death has passed. Finally, mulching thickly with a 2-3 inch layer of compost will provide an extra duvet for the roots of all plants, and the chance of a cosy winter.

x Laetitia

Leaf mould how-to

 When it comes to garden alchemy, leaf-mould is one of the easiest and simplest bits of magic.

It improves the texture of any soil, because it makes for happy worms. It also makes the best, most beautiful dark crumbly mulch, and (if you leave it 2-3 years) is a really good medium for seed-sowing. The challenge then, is creating enough of it, and fast enough to satisfy an impatient gardener like myself. The first thing is to get more leaves, as the pile rots down to about a quarter of its original mass. The internets are replete with info on ‘the best leaves’ but common sense will have you steering clear of evergreens and anything diseased, and chopping up anything thick or coarse with the mower. In fact, chopping all your leaves up (coarse or otherwise) as fine as possible will help, as will turning the pile every few weeks. It’s important to keep things moist, so add water if things sound or feel crispy. My bags are stacked on top of each-other and the bottom ones are ready first, so weighting the heap down creates faster leaf-mould. I would mulch the entire garden with this stuff if only I could make enough; if I had the space, I would replace my usual multiple plastic-bags-with-holes system with a large builders bag, or even better, two enormous compost bays, for once you’ve got a system going, it’s quantity rather than speed that you’ll be hankering after.