Using the Right Mulch in Your Garden
Mulch is any material that is used over the soil as a covering or protective layer. While it is commonly pieces of wood or tree clippings, it doesn’t have to be. It comes in a wide variety of organic and inorganic materials. It is cost-effective, too.
The Benefits of Using Melbourne Mulch in Your Garden
Mulch not only looks great, but it has a lot of benefits for your yard and garden, including:
Help retain moisture in the soil, which helps decrease on watering needs
Suppress weeds by blocking sunlight
Keep the soil cool and shades very young seedlings
Protect the ground from getting too cold in the winter months
Reduce runoff from both water and liquid nutrients
Decrease soil movement and helps support the long-term health of the soil
Adding organic mulch to your soil can help your garden be healthier and generally more resistant to disease-carrying pests and bacteria. It also shares its nutrients with your plants, which helps prevent vitamin loss and provides valuable slow-release nutrients. It will often increase the biological activity in your garden, including increasing the number of earthworms and micro-organisms.
Choosing the Right Mulch for Your Garden
Mulch is easy to incorporate into your garden, and once you realize the many benefits, you will likely be excited to get started. However, you need to choose which type of mulch will work best for what you need before you can apply it. Not all mulch types are the same or as beneficial as some other types.
Size matters when it comes to the type of mulch you choose. The first step is to decide what size mulch will do well in your garden. In general, there are four categories of mulch.
Chunky Mulch
Wholesale mulch that falls into this category is large enough that none of the pieces will fit through a 5mm screen. This type of mulch is by far the best option if you are worried about the evaporation rate and whether the mulch will soak up water. When tested, chunky mulch allows water to pass through effectively while also reducing evaporation.
Mostly Chunky
Mulch in Melbourne that falls into the “mostly chunky” classification means that roughly two-thirds of the pieces were too big to fit through a 5mm screen. When tested, this option was the second-best when it came to evaporation rates and water retention.
Chunky-Fine Combination
This combination of pieces includes a half-and-half mixture of chunky and fine particles. The small parts may be appealing for smaller gardens. But if you are worried about evaporation and getting water to your plants, then the chunk-fine combination is probably the finest amount that you should use.
Mostly Fine
Mulch that is mostly fine will generally fit through a 2mm screen. While there may be about one-third of larger pieces, the smaller pieces predominate. When tested, mostly fine wholesale mulch did the worst in terms of soaking up water and the evaporation rate.
The fine mulch actually robbed water from the plants and was the poorest option to decrease evaporation rates. Fine mulches can soak up to four times more than chunky mulches. As a result, it will take a very heavy rain for the soil to get moisture if you are using a fine mulch. That can work great for succulents but can be disastrous for other types of plants.
Applying Mulch to Your Garden or Landscape
Laying down mulch is very easy to do. You can follow these simple steps.
Remove all weeds from the area first.
Water the area thoroughly. Be sure that the water penetrates the soil. If you see that water is running off the area, it might be a good idea to add holes or compost to the land to help with getting water below the surface. If you are planting, add compost to the bottom of your planting hole to help with plant growth.
Apply your mulch. Use a depth of about 6 to 8 cm. Keep the area directly around plants clear to help them obtain the right amount of water.
Spreading Mulch: A Quick Tip
You should also keep in mind that a thick layer of mulch that holds water and stays wet for a long time could actually rot instead of being beneficial for your plants. Mulch rot can introduce disease to your soil. Using a thin layer of chunky mulch will work great for most plants in your garden.
A Caution About Inorganic Mulch
Organic mulch will provide the most benefits for your soil. However, there are inorganic options that you can use as well. These materials include things like:
Rock or gravel
Plastic sheeting
Landscape fabric
Rubber mulch
These materials do not decompose as organic mulch would. Instead, they slowly break down over a long period of time.
Plastic sheeting, for example, is very bad for the long-term health of the soil. It does not allow water, air, or other nutrients to get into the ground. As a result, it is not a good idea to use plastic sheeting around plants that you would like to grow. Instead, it is only used as a weed suppressant or in an area where you do not want to grow plants.
Types of Organic Mulch at Arborcraft
Arborcraft provides virtually every service you can imagine involving trees. As a result, we frequently have wholesale mulch available for use in gardens and landscaping. We can deliver a minimum of 10 meters and up to 10,000 meters of mulch to help you with virtually any size gardening project.
Tree Trimming and Bush Mulch
Tree trimming mulch comes in the form of wood chips. The sizes vary, but they are often larger pieces. They are generally free from weeds and pesticides, so they make a great addition to any garden or landscaping project.
This type of wholesale mulch will break down slowly, but they will often use nitrogen from the soil as they go through this decomposing process. You can combat this potential issue fairly easily by adding a nitrogen-containing fertilizer on the ground before spreading the mulch. Plants native to Melbourne that have low nutrient requirements will pair well with this type of mulch.
Add Melbourne Mulch to Your Garden!
If you’d like to add mulch to your garden or landscaping project, call Arborcraft. Our mulch delivery service can save you lots of time and hassle! 03-9913-5195
