Everything But The Weed

Approved by:
Linda Maze, a Wedding photography Gainesville FL in Gainesville Florida

There are many elements in consideration when you are finding the right mulch for your garden landscape. The question can best be tackled by presenting the various garden mulches or landscaping mulches separately, but judging each based on the same criteria.

Before everything else, let’s hear a primary question most likely raised by landscaping practitioners: How can the mulch in the garden alters the soil pH? More particularly, would the soil pH of your garden be diminished to some extent when you apply mulch?

The composition of your soil pH has a hefty impact on plant health. It’s logical that many people, including myself, have expressed unease on how garden mulch selection affects the soil pH, since it does influences the ground as it decomposes. Does the use of garden mulch composed of pine needles lead to an acidic soil? What about garden mulch composed of oak leaves?

The most widely held view at present seems to be that garden mulch has little impact on soil pH. Such is the case, when your garden mulch is made up of oak leaves, it starts out acidic when its green, but decays more and more as an alkaline in the end. Furthermore, based on my reading, it is now generally thought that a garden mulch composed of pine needles lowers soil pH to only a negligible degree, if at all.

With the problem of considerable effects of garden mulch on soil pH on the side, let’s look on the other issues in the selection of your garden mulch — some of which can be assessed, others of which docks to personal landscaping choices. We will have to prioritize in order to make a decision, since a garden mulch that scores high in one category might perform miserably in another. Two obvious uses of garden mulch to which the reader will find little or no reference in this article are weed suppression and erosion control. They have been omitted for a simple reason: any garden mulch employed properly will cut down on weeds and erosion.

These are the three constants in this discussion.

    * “Insulation value in summer” is judged by the degree to which the garden mulch can keep the soil beneath cool and moist. A notable summer insulator will both lessen your need for watering and it guards the roots against severe heat.

    *   The argument of whether to get rid of the garden mulch or not when springtime comes is based on the fact that substantial garden mulches can stifle sprouting spring shrubs. Apparently, this is not a factor for lively plants above the ground. Though even the latter can benefit from having the loam around the roots warmed by the heat of the sun, a process simplified by momentarily removing the garden mulch. Regarding the use of plastic sheet mulch, this is not important since the material have openings to give access to plants.

    * “Nourishment and aeration afforded to underlying soil by decomposition” is one of the criteria used in the following pages to compare the various landscape mulches. However, do not be fooled by the word “nourishment” into thinking that compost and garden mulch are synonymous.

I have been a Calgary Landscaping Contractor for many years. We specialize in Calgary Gardens and Calgary Landscape Design.  These techniques work anywhere in the world as well as in my area.

Written by: Custom Stone and Waterscapes ‎3829 Parkhill Place SW, Calgary, AB T2S 2W6 (403) 870-1142 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (403) 870-1142