How to Use various Mulches?

How to Use various Mulches in my Garden? Is the number one question of our FAQ hit parade this week, when people call or write about the Mulch It Now, Doylestown, Pa 18901 Mulching Special.

As you probably know if you have read our blogs so far this year mulch applied properly will serve many important purposes. Even a small layer of mulch will stabilize the temperature of the soil, helps to reduce your watering bill since mulching aids to retain moisture, the natural weed control.

Organic mulches improve, as they continue to decompose the soil nutrients and create a good environment for earthworm development.
What type of mulch

So back to our number one question: How to Use various Mulches. With the petroleum, food and mortgage monetary crisis in full swing, some of you may have to minimize your mulching cost this year and do the job yourself. So here is a pointer of how to reduce the cost and make use of well decomposed garden/yard waste. The leaves you collected during your fall and spring cleaning of years past, grass clippings, compost, small wood chips and pine needles are good sources to reduce your mulching cost this year.

If you have pets that need litters consisting of sawdust, straw, hay, wood chips, and wood bark can be other sources of organic mulches.

Some Inorganic mulch sources are gravel, crushed stone, sand, pebbles, cinder, and shredded rubber( be aware of high levels of Zinc are found in soils where shredded tires have been used). Some people include synthetic layers of plastic, poly fiber weed block; we at Mulch IT Now do not recommend this vary expensive practice because it does not really work. distill perforate the fabric and all other weed use the same openings too.

"When to mulch" was and has been our number two question. Customers every year say to us" "I don't want you to come to early, we have graduation party in June and the mulch will have faded".

Mulching can be practiced year round, for various reasons. Aesthetically, in the Northern Hemisphere we apply mulch at the beginning of the growing season.
Some people apply or have their mulch installers do a spruce up around Labor Day and for protection of their bulb plants again around December and maybe even for all the year end parties :-).


Should I remove the old Mulch and replaced it new one every year. Is the next FAQ question on the hit parade of mulching. This is Mulch It Now s position. No, No and No! Reason number one, the decaying mulch is adding to the soil texture as discussed earlier in this blog and second the installer and mulch provider get to make more money off of YOU!

For you that have to save this year, the question most often asked this spring is: How is mulch applied?

Normally we suggest adding a 1 to 2 inch layer to stabilize the soil temperature and reduce evaporation. Some gardeners and landscapers apply more than 2 inches of much, this can lead to a variety of problems such as overheating of the not to well seasoned wood chip based mulch. Do not smother your plants with mulch either. Your plant material should not come in direct contact with the mulch, a distance of about the thickness of a male a thumb should be left around every plant stem or trunk.

When you are mulching around your trees should extend the bed out to the drip line.

These few pointers in this Mulching Special Blog for Doylestown, PA 18901 should have answered some of your burning questions of: How to Use various Mulches