Do you have things in your life that you inexplicably love or are embarrassed for dorkily loving beyond reason? I sure do. I love crisp cold apples; once I eat one, buying a 100 pound wooden crate of them seems like a good idea. (If only I could figure out where to put that pallet… and I really need a fork lift!). I love cordless drills. I wish I had a Mikita, although I don’t have any projects right now that would call for it. I love old clothing that smells like mothballs. And old hats, even though I rarely wear them. I like beat up leather bags, like the kind that photographers or doctors used to use. I like to horde chunks of fabric, and will save any piece, no matter how small. More than any of these though, I love mulch. I lust after mulch.
How does one “lust” after mulch? I want it so much that it makes me contemplate completely unethical ways to get it. My desire to acquire mulch manifests in serious consideration of theft. As I walk around the city, I occasionally see piles of bark, leaves, or rock that people have piled in their driveways or yard, and I imagine STEALING it. I want it! I wonder if they would notice if it went missing? Could I pull up and fit it in the trunk of my Nissan Sentra? Probably not. Would I need to rent a pick-up to steal that mulch? Probably. Will they notice it being gone? I think not as they have clearly not applied it to their yard yet. Here it is sitting on the street!
I didn’t always love mulch. My knowledge of soil quality has sort of grown slowly starting with a lot of reading about composting and gradually branching out to leaf mulching. When we lived in Eugene, we actually had great soil, mostly in our backyard. Our property had most likely been river bottom back before dams on the Willamette contained the reach of the river. The soil was a deep, rich brown, full of chunks of decomposing leaves and bark, moist to the touch, and teaming with a diverse mix of beneficial worms and insects. It smelled good. It looked good. The one place that did not look good was out on the planting strip between the sidewalk in front of our house and the street. There the soil was compacted, barely supporting a sickly light green mash of grass and weeds. There were two ugly ash trees that Brad quickly dubbed “the alien trees”. They dropped a sticky yellow dust in the spring that was their “bloom”. The rest of the year they weeped putrid leaves that furthered the suffocated look of the grass beneath them. What ugly trees.
It wasn’t really an option to cut down the trees, because even though they were not pretty, they were full grown and did provide shade and privacy for the front of our house as well as the other good things that trees do like sucking up pollution and creating oxygen. I got sick of looking at what was under the trees though, and one fall, started carting leaves to lay down under these awful trees. My neighbors were thrilled of course as I raked up their yards and carted away the leaves. I hoarded cardboard and newspaper and laid that down first to make a light barrier that would hopefully kill the last of the grass. Then I put down the leaves, compost and more leaves about a foot or two thick. The leaves didn’t look too bad, and the piled up organic matter made a nicely rounded mound that was sort of attractive. I hauled big rocks from around our property to make my piles of mulch look more naturalistic.
Come spring, I divided most of my perennials that I thought might make it in this part shade planting area. Shasta daisies went on the outside, flox on a sunny corner,(it later did very poorly–not enough sun), and a hardy spanish lavender close under the trees. I pruned off crossing branches on the ash and tried to get a bit more light under the canopy.
The cool thing was that my shovel shot right through that nasty soil. The cardboard was completely broken down. The leaves had created a very rich looking soil. Weeds were minimal, and this area continued to be one of the easiest-care of my plots. I rarely needed to weed, and when I did have to pull an offender out, it gave up easily with not even a fight.
The key to growing healthy plants really does start with healthy soil, and even though it is way less fun than trekking to the garden center, spending $200 on amazing plants and plopping them in,(all in one exhausting yet exultant day!), if you don’t concentrate first on the make up and health of your soil, your plants will just die… or languish slowly and look at you hatefully. Oh the wonders of mulch!
This is getting too long, so I won’t tell my most recently mulch story. I will save that for another day and everyone will wait with baited breath, I am sure! But here for you are the benefits of mulch, complementary of Wikepedia:
Mulch is used for various purposes:
- to adjust temperature by helping soil retain more heat in spring and fall, and by keeping soil cool and even out temperature swings during hot and variable summer conditions
- to control weeds by blocking the sunlight
- to retain water by slowing evaporation
- to add organic matter and nutrients to the soil through the gradual breakdown of the mulch material
- to repel insects
- to incrementally improve growing conditions by reflecting sunlight upwards to the plants, and by providing a clean, dry surface for ground-lying fruit such as squash and melons.
- for erosion control—protects soil from rain and preserves moisture
- for sediment control—slows runoff velocity
Mulching is an important part of any no-dig gardening regime, such as practiced withinpermaculture systems.
See that no-dig gardening regime? Translate that to “less work” gardening regime. Less time hacking with a shovel, trying to break down soil that doesn’t want to break down and will eventually compact back to its stubborn form. Mulch= less work. Hurrah!
One Comment, Comment or Ping
I guess I must share your love of mulch because right now I am kicking myself for signing up for the city leaf program! The 1st load was so small that I asked for a 2nd- and now I have a 10 foot wide x 8 foot high pile of leaves in my driveway… AAAAAAA!!!! I got carried away with my mulch lust- let this be a warning to you.
Your older sister and cautionary tale-
Kirstin
November 22nd, 2008
Reply to “I love Mulch”