Plant seeds directly in whatever is there. The paper won't stop roots. Hard to believe, but true.

I doubt the newspaper will adversly affect your seedlings, about 3 weeks after smothering stiff with newspaper I fond plant roots growing through it. Check out what Monty posted on the FAQ page about interbay mulching. i'd much prefer something from Jon Rowley but since he married he has not been around here much at all.

Here is a link that might be useful: FAQ on Interbay Mulch

Will it work on existing plants like Azalea using brown materials only to promote more fungal growth? I used burlap to protect the soil mixture (cedar flakes,compost, cedar mulch) from the rainfall that runs off the roof (you'd see a line forming on the soil after heavy rainfall) covered with pine mulch. I don't know if it'd have same effect but burlap is the only thing i can think of to protect the soil from the rainfall and wondered about its effect on microbes population.

Lou,

I've used burlap all summer on my soil, it was the best way I found to germinate seeds with our clay soil (which I amended heavily with compost). The burlap is supposed to be realy good for the microbe population and what I noticed was that even with really high heat, 105, under the burlap would be moist even if the top wasn't (provided I watered regularly) and it prevented cracking too. Anyway, it really does promote moisture and an environment really good for growing things. When the burlap dries it still absorbs moisture well and doesn't shed water like some mulches. For the roof runoff line, which was strong enough to expose my plant's roots, I found that a heavy mulching (4") with cedar flakes (well chipped ones) was the best thing. Then I would put whatever else underneath the mulch.

Shredded leaves or wood chips wil do the same thing, better and add organic matter to the soil. Burlap, if left in place long enough would (providing its made from jute not plastic) add a wee bit.

what about canvas dropcloth? It's made out of cotton. I saw these at Lowes when I was looking for something and wondered if it'd work better than burlap? It's much heavier and id imagine that it'd hold more water. I think it'd tolerate roof rainfall better so perhaps i should line this fabric up where the roof line is. Cedar mulch doesn't really help much esp during very heavy rain.

canvas tends to shed water doesn't it? I'd guess it depends on the weave. I'm surprised the cedar doesn't work it worked well for me and I was getting lines atleast 3" deep, you might want to look around for different cuts of mulch, I've seen cedar that's barely chopped up and some that's really nice and mulchy. I think that by definition burlap is made from jute, otherwise it's some fabric other than burlap. Maybe even a log would work, just something to break the flow and then mulch around it.

Yeah, i know what you mean by different cuts of mulch. I never could remember which is which brand for that. I was looking for one that's barely chopped up but never could remember which one. I thought i did and they were nice and mulchy that could easily get matted down after watering to the point that it looked like they already decomposed. Cedar flakes are quite messy on windy days when i try to apply them!

I get burlap from lowes. Well, it says 'burlap' on the label. I just cut a hole in the middle and put on azalea beds, double layers. I might try a strip of canvas where it recieves roof rainfall to break up the flow. It hasnt rain much here lately so i don't know if burlap worked well. That storm that passed through a couple weeks really cut into the bed soil which got my attention. I didn't think it'd get bad with the cedar mulch. I guess not.

For the roof runoff these things seem temporary at best. Am I missing something here? Sounds like you need a fix at the top, not the bottom. Don't you have gutters in Texas? If you do and you get these deep gouges in the soil, are the gutters blocked or something? I had that in one area along the dripline, but I got roofers to fix the gutters which solved the problem.

Sometimes this forum is just so entertaining! I asked a question re: planting seeds in an interbay mulch bed and you guys hijacked into a discussion on solving runoff problems from the roof. When you open a thread on this forum you never know where you'll find yourself at the end! Not a complaint, guys, just an observation. I seem only to ask questions here and learn a lot, and am usually entertained in the process.
Karen

Karen,

Yeah some of us have gutters. I don't. Personally, I can't seem to not WASTE rainfall, after all it's free! My parents never had one and they had bed plants around the house so i guess they wanted rainfall to go to the bed plants. The biggest difference is that mine's in raised bed and they arent. The soil profile is very different as well. I probably will have to put up another level of retainer wall and add more mulch (after putting down burlap) to keep them in place. That should do the trick since the rootball level is above retainer wall level.

I'm so sorry about straying way off the topic! It's just that interbay mulching is really interesting and thought using them in already planted bed would work and help protect azaleas' shallow root system by using burlap from that roofline rainfall. Not to mention cutting down water bill! Lol.

Here in Ohio, if I let all the water run off my roof to the ground, it would freeze and crack the foundation and my basement would be a swimming pool. I've lived in this house over 20 years and do have cracks in the basement walls. Even with the sump pump I get small leaks into the basement during heavy spring rains.

I have gutters in the front and not in the back, honestly, I think gutters work much better elsewhere in the country, Here it's really dry and then really rainy. Kinda flash flood type weather. So it will be so dry that these huge cracks open in the clay, and then when it rains the ground can't soak up the water fast enough. So with gutters that channel all the water to one area you end up with a huge flood (and whoever designed my house stuck the gutter outlet so that it floods the front porch), but if it runs off the roof line it's more spread out and the soil seems to handle it better..except for the roof line problem.

I particularly like texas cedar mulch comes in a white,turquise,orange bag but I haven't seen it at lowes lately.

Sorry for the hijack.

About seeds, I wouldn't worry about the paper. In my lasagna beds I planted whole plants, I think that if the bed isn't well broken down you would just loose the seeds into the mulch void. But I think you could throw a thin layer of bagged topsoil (it's real cheep) on the area say 1" or less, and seed on that, cover the seeds with a bit more dirt and burlap (works really well in this situation) and it would work real good. I actually put bagged top soil on top of my lasagna bed because I was worried it wasn't high enough and I needed good drainage for herbs, I now wish I hadn't added quite as thick a soil layer because these herbs might do better with mulch instead of soil that holds a good deal of water but it is working fine.

Kris,

Your gutter system doesn't sound as if it would work very well. In my area the gutters run into downspouts and it meets the outbound water from the sump pump and together they flow underground thru a pipe which dumps into the street at the curb, then into street sewers

Oh no my gutters are nothing fancy like that, mine dumps onto a concrete splash pan thing on the ground in to my two front garden beds. It's obviously poorly designed because the outlets are just in stupid places, but I've seen normal well working gutter systems on the east coast and none of them were hooked up to street sewers. I didn't even know they could be hooked up to sewers, that's interesting and I image it would work really well.

We hook the gutter downspouts up to rainbarrels and capture the water that way. It's addictive! We started with one and now we have three. Now they have to be drained for the winter, but they were a tremendous supplement during the dry summer.

Last fall I used the lasagna method to convert a big area of lawn to a veg. garden. Everything broke down fairly nicely, but I topped the piles with composted manure rather than soil. I think this was a mistake as it seemed to affect germination for certain plants.

My question is: now that the sod is gone, I've topped the beds with a thick layer of shredded leaves mixed with grass clippings. I plant to drizzle a thin layer of soil over that to hold in the organic matter. I didn't bother with the newspaper (the beds are weed-free). Is that sufficient? I didn't add more lime as my soil test showed that things were fine last year, and even borderline too much for potatoes.

Any other tips gratefully accepted.

Running the downspout water to a rain barrel or a heavily mulched area in your yard tends to be a better idea than running directly into the sewers of cities or even suburban areas. I would guess that flash floods are partly a result of this, because if all the water was soaked up it wouldn't flood streams and rivers (at least not in a "flash"). Correct me if you have other information, but I have read that during thunderstorms all of the extra water running directly into the sewers (since it does not get absorbed into the soil) can overload water treatment plants, causing overflow of untreated water into nearby rivers. I do not know for sure if its true, but it seems possible, anyways, why pay for more water to come out of a hose to water plants (and be chlorinated) when I could get all I want for free from my roof?

My house sits about 3 feet above street level so I didnt see the point in getting rain gutters. They'd just run off the lawn onto the street anyway. The only issue is the swale between my house and next door is that they have rain gutter and the downsprout dumps water into swale instead of driveway which would drain the water to the street. The rain has been scarce all summer so any extra rain would help alot. We're talking about 2600 square foot of roof... I had to water more often than I'd like and it was one of the driest summers ever. Last summer (2004) was one of the wettest summers ever. I guess things got balanced out.