There are many elements in consideration when you are finding the right mulch for your garden landscape. We can judge distinct types of mulch by studying their reference points from one another.

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

The soil pH composition has a big contribution on the stamina of your shrubs. It’s logical that many people, including myself, have expressed unease on how garden mulch selection affects the soil pH, since it does influences the ground as it decomposes. Does using pine needles in your landscape mulch lead to your garden soil withering away? What about having oak leaves as mulch in your garden?

A popular belief of landscape professionals is that garden mulch has insignificant changes in the pH composition of your loam. For instance, while oak-leaf garden mulch may be acidic when fresh, most experts now say that it becomes more and more alkaline as it decomposes. Moreover, based on what I’ve read, it is now believed pine that needles making up a garden mulch reduces the soil pH to inconsequential levels, if ever.

With the problem of considerable effects of garden mulch on soil pH on the side, let’s look on the other issues in the selection of your garden mulch — some of which can be assessed, others of which docks to personal landscaping choices. 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 distinct purposes of garden mulch on which a beginner will find little information in this article are weed suspension and erosion control. They have not been included for a simple fact: a garden mulch done perfectly will eliminate weeds and erosion altogether.

These are the three parameters in our discussion.

    * “Insulation value in summer” is judged by the degree to which the garden mulch can keep the soil beneath cool and moist. A favorable summer insulator will both minimize your watering needs and at the same time defends the roots against intense 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. This is obviously less of a factor, however, for plants that remain alive aboveground, throughout the winter. 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. Regarding the use of plastic sheet mulch, this is not important since the material have openings to give access to plants.

    * “Nourishment and aeration afforded to underlying soil by decomposition” is a standard used to distinguish the different landscape 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     

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 4:41 am and is filed under Gardening Plants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.