A Mulch for Every Weed

A Mulch for Every Weed

Black plastic and newspapers can keep your garden happy

Think of mulch as protective blanket for your garden bed. It helps keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. A healthy layering of wood chips or pine needles can keep your garden appearing well maintained and attractive. But the principal reason to use mulch is to descrease weeds by smothering them. As a bonus, it can help to prevent soil-moisture loss.

Mulching also can provide an environmentally friendly outlet for all those grass clippings and raked leaves that many municipalities require to be recycled nowadays.

Here we describe some of the different varieties of mulch, the depth at which they should be spread, and what they are best used for:

Black Plastic – one sheet

Not very attractive, but highly effective, black plastic totally smothers existing and emerging weeds and is great for warming soil in the spring. Make sure that enough water is penetrating the plastic to prevent the plants from drying out, though. Black plastic is most effective if it is used with drip irrigation.

Compost – 1-8 in.

Compost can be a combination of many of the other mulches found in this list. It has great color, costs nothing, and naturally enriches soil structure and fertility. Make sure not to put any diseased plants in the compost heap, though. The disease can spread easily to other, healthy plants.

Evergreen Boughs - 8-24 in.

They are a good winter covering for perennial beds. But be sure to remove them in the spring.

Mulch for every weed. Photo by Elena.

Grass Clippings 3-6 in.

A particularly good mulch for vegetable gardens. Do not use if the clippings were recently sprayed with herbicide, though.

Hay 6-12 in.

Especially good for vegetable garden pathways. Salt hay has fewer weed seeds than regular hay.

Landscape Fabrics – One Sheet

These clear films are more porous that black plastic, and some are biodegradable. They are particularly good for foundation plantings.

Leaves 3-5 in.

Leabes make a great all around mulcj and they are easy to come by. If they are shredded, pile them 6 to 8 inches higher so they don't blow away.

Pine Bark 2-5 in.

When shredded, pine bark is good for acid-loving plants; 3 to 6-inch chips also are natural and attractive.

Pine needles 2-6 in.

They have a lovely natural appearance and are excellent for increasing acidity in acid-loving plants like azaleas and rhododendrons.

Newspapers -1/2 – 2 1/2 in.

Best for informal areas like a vegetable garden. Don't use colored inks, and cover the newspaper with an organic mulch to weigh it down and to make it more attractive.

Straw 3-9 in.

Most often used in vegetable gardens and, of course, in between rows of strawberry plantings.

Wood Chips – 2-8 in.

Nice appearance, but be sure to add extra nitrogen to the soil – wood consumes nitrogen when decomposing.