Mulch alternatives for mold avoidance
Betsey Thompson
11 years ago
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11 years agojrmckins
11 years agoRelated Discussions
Mulch alternatives under trees
Comments (14)As mad gallica says - that's nothing.... Our backyard is completely covered every fall with the leaves of a mature green ash, a red oak (although a lot of those hang on the tree until spring and get chopped up and added to the garden in spring...) and the needlecast from two middle-aged white pines. The leaves get chopped with either the lawn mower or the mulching leaf blower and get dumped on the beds. Chopping them first reduces the volume and makes them break down faster. I figure the leaves represent all the nutrients the trees took from the soil during the growing season and it is best for the tree and the gardens if those nutrients are returned to the soil - as they would be naturally in a woodland environment. I'd bet the soil under your trees is hard-packed and dry. It needs the leaves to add organic matter. If you ever decide to plant woodland-type plants under the trees, the leaves are part of the conditions they expect....See Morealternatives to wood/bark mulch
Comments (30)It is not like Ma Nature is just sitting in the sky going, "oh some bare soil, I am putting weeds here." Weeds come from seeds. Most people let the weeds go for many years. Some weed seeds last for many years like even 60 years. If you don't have weed seeds in your soil, the only weeds you will get are ones that are blown in by the wind or brought in by birds. When you compost weeds with seeds you just add a lot of weed seeds right back again to your soil. When you let the weeds go to seed it is just the same as composting them or worse even. It only takes two weeks or less of inattention to weeding to cause weeds to seed. Once the soil is filled with weed seeds it is going be nearly impossible to remove them all. Even you mulch with heavy wood the seeds will break through that at some point. If you buy some compost that is not sterile it could have weed seeds. Weeds also come from your neighbors yard under your fence into your yard. It takes never ending work to keep weeds under control....See MoreMulched, Mulched, Mulched. Daylilies all mulched.
Comments (23)Nate, it sounds like the following is too late, since your work has already begun, but for what it's worth: We had 4 new roofs (entire house) and everything that that entailed (remove old roofs, put on new + gutters & downspouts) and new stucco siding on one side of the house's addition (hence, remove all old stucco, too). Contractor also created a new profile for the eave over that side of the house; also made and installed a copper overhang for the window on that side. Not all of this was done at the same time; still, a lot of construction materials and debris. Used the same contractor and his small crew for everything. The crew was able to do the roofing job by accessing all the roofs from the patio; the main issue was roof debris that ended up on the ground. They were exceedingly careful and neat but even now, I do find the occasional nail and bits of roofing material. For the stucco work, however, they needed to erect and safely access scaffolding. I asked the contractor to try to protect a daylily bed directly under the side of the house needing that work. For various reasons, I couldn't dig up the plants in it, even though it contained some daylilies I value a lot (eg LAST SNOWFLAKE, NEON FLAMINGO, COWBOY SCARF, MABOU, Jack Carpenter patterns, and more), so he set up the scaffolding on a large piece of plywood that was placed on cinder blocks on either end of the bed (and with two blocks supporting the mid part of the wood). The crew had to access the scaffolding of course, so one end of the bed got badly trampled & the soil very compacted. Even so, given what had to be done to the house, and the time they spent doing it, the daylilies sailed through everything in near perfect condition. There was a lot of bent and torn foliage, but it was late autumn anyway so that didn't matter. Plus, it was the crowns I'd been concerned about. We plan to use the same guys to paint the house's exterior next spring. Since I don't know exactly which month that will be, I expect to have to dig up the entire bed. Even so, I'll ask the contractor to once again place scaffolding on plywood on cinder blocks. The idea will be to protect the soil from compaction so that I can use that bed again as soon as the work is done....See Morean alternate use for water resistant mulch
Comments (5)I think my point got a bit diluted here by the promotion of berms, banks, whatever we want to call 'em. What got me interested on this occasion was the effectivenesss of a (lightweight, freely available) product to form the berm. I was surprised at the quality of the seal with the ground surface. I'd have had little hope of scraping up enough soil around an existing tree on this place to form the right size bank i.e. under the drip line. Thinking that there are cases where mulch is not doing the job because it won't wet, is settling too tight etc etc; it may be better pulled back to form water retaining structures and an alternative mulch used to fill in. Rose...See Moretoxcrusadr
11 years agogardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
11 years agohortster
11 years agoKimmsr
11 years agotoxcrusadr
11 years agogardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
11 years agotoxcrusadr
11 years agoKimmsr
11 years agostrobiculate
11 years agoKimmsr
11 years agoblazeaglory
11 years agoKimmsr
11 years agotoxcrusadr
11 years agoBetsey Thompson
11 years ago
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