Garden Mulch – Use it to Control Soil Erosion!

When determining which garden mulch or landscape mulch is best suited for your landscaping needs, there are many factors to consider. The argument can be understood by showing to you the standards of the different garden mulches.

Before beginning, let’s look at a preliminary question that many landscaping enthusiasts have: Does mulch covering affect soil pH at all? More specifically, does any garden mulch lower soil pH, as many have long suspected?

The pH composition of your soil has a determining effect on the well-being of your plants. Since garden mulch could influence that composition as it decomposes, it’s understandable that people (myself included) have often expressed concern over how garden mulch selection impacts soil pH. Does the use of garden mulch composed of pine needles lead to an acidic soil? How about gardening mulch with leaves from oak trees?

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. In addition, based on latest gardening journals, garden mulch comprised with pine needles softens the soil pH to imperceptible degree, at any rate.

With the question of the potential impact of garden mulch on soil pH out of the way, let’s reflect on some other issues surrounding garden mulch selection — some of which are quantifiable, others of which boil down to personal landscaping preferences. We would have to set things up clearly if only to make a decision, since a garden mulch can do well in one group  only to perform unsatisfactorily 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 not been included for a simple fact: a garden mulch done perfectly will eliminate weeds and erosion altogether.

Here are the three main frameworks of our discussions.

    * “Insulation value in summer” is determined by the levels on which the garden mulch can keep the soil below to remain cool and clammy. A notable summer insulator will both lessen your need for watering and it guards the roots against severe heat.

    * The consideration of whether or not the garden mulch needs to be removed in spring is grounded in the fact that heavy organic garden mulches can smother emerging spring plants. 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. In the case of plastic sheet mulch, this factor is irrelevant, since holes are poked through the material to provide access for the plants.

    * “Nourishment and aeration afforded to underlying soil by decomposition” is a benchmark used to approximate the different garden 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