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Soil, Compost & Mulch

Best Mulch for Winter Insulation

16 years ago

I have several cold hardy palms, banana plants, gardenias and cannas that need to have their roots well mulched to avoid damage over the winter. My question is which is best: Pine Straw, wood mulch or shredded oak leaves? Why is one better than the other for winter protection?

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Comments (9)

Kimmsr
16 years ago
The best mulch to use is whatever you can get the most of at the least cost. I'd suspect that in Virginia you have access to leaves pretty much for free, except processing, while wood chips and pine straw need to be purchased at a store.
Because the leaves have a fairly large, and diverse, level of nutrients in them that does give them a bit better reason for use.
the_virginian
Original Author
16 years ago
I can get leaves and pine straw for free and in the case of leaves, folks are nice about bagging them up and leaving them at the curb for me. I shred them with a lawn mower and put them right on the beds. I can get barn litter from horses that has wood shavings as the bedding that has been composted for free too. I am leaning towards the leaves, but maybe this stuff would be good to use as a top dressing and then put a layer of shredded leaves down too?
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To: portia, That was exactly the same circumastance I went through the last 2 years with dahlias. We got LOTS of rain last year from April through July, into August, which is odd considering it normally starts getting dry in June in the mid Atlantic. So even though I used a mix of potting soil with gardening soil and some native soil, it was waterlogged, so I had to replant twice last year. This year I assumed we wouldnt get all the rain we got last year, but in May we had a huge storm that dropped inches of rain and when I looked at them the next day, it was like digging a hole in the sand at the beach, when you dig deep enough you run into water. Well, all I had to do was dig down 3 inches around the dahlia tubers, and I was hitting water! So I dug them all up, buried the sopping wet soil back into the hole, but got rid of about an inch of it, then made a new mixture of about 50% sand, built mounds roughly 6-7" tall and buried the tubers inside the mounds at about 1" above normal ground level, so that in reality they werent deep enough to become covered in water again. They dont like being dug up & replanted after they have been in the ground a few weeks, and it caused them to stop growing for about 2 weeks to reestablish their roots. From now on I think mounds are the answer to planting dahlias at least til I find a better place to plant them.
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bob64
16 years ago
I get wood chips free when I have tree work done and I have also gotten them for free from a contractor who was grinding a tree across the street just for the asking. It couldn't hurt to aks. A pile of freshly ground wood chips will often generate its own heat for a while so you might want to pile them out of the way for a few days.
Kimmsr
16 years ago
If the manure has been composted that would be a good addition with the leaf mulch.
diggity_ma
16 years ago
For insulation, you want something that has a lot of air space in it. Think of pink fiberglass insulation - it's mostly air! Now I'm not suggesting that you use fiberglass in the garden! I'm suggesting to look for a natural analog. I have found that regular straw works well because it stays relatively loose. It's also hollow like a straw, which means it traps more air for insulation. I first found this out years ago when the spring garden was threatened with a late frost. I grabbed everything I could think of, including blankets, 5-gallon buckets, and handfuls of straw. Next morning, the plants under the 5-gallon buckets were all dead while those under a loose pile of straw were fine.

-Diggity
sylviatexas1
16 years ago
Diggity, I've had good luck with crumpled newspaper inside buckets & flower pots-

not as good as "real" mulch, but it served in an emergency.
tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
16 years ago
I use whole, not shredded leaves held down with spruce boughs. It provides the air layers that diggity mentions.

tj
tclynx
16 years ago
I've also put bows and branches under the layer of leaves/wood chips. More that the wood chips looked nicer than the boughs on the surface
the_virginian
Original Author
16 years ago
I am probably going to end up using a combination of all three depending on where in the garden I am putting down winter mulch.

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