Help, I'm very new to this gardening hobby as I usually just get the chance to do container stuff. THe previous owner of our new house was an avid gardener and wonderful perenials are growing in nicely. She had her beds covering in cedar mulch? (the brownish chips).
What purpose is it for?Weeds? I personally do not like the look of it; i prefer the look of the soil. As I was cleaning out the beds of debris/leaves, I got rid of a lot of the chips. Was this ok? Now that most is gone, the soil looks tired? What next?? Add new soil??
Help please, my neighbours are also great gardeners and I feel them peering at me through the windows!!!!!
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All bark or organic mulches can cause depletion of nitrogen in the soil. This is because the soil microbes use nitorogen to degrade the carbon (organic material) in the mulch. It is really only a problem where the mulch is mixed into the soil (the large chips won't mix well anyhow). You want to keep your mulch layer on top, where it has minimal contact with the soil. Having said that, fine mulches decompose faster, requiring an annual "top-up". But all the time they are suppressing weed growth and keeping in the moisture, so it is kind of a trade-off. You should keep fertilizing throughout the season, and this will add nitrogen to the soil.
There is an excellent article, reprinted from the Goodwood Gardens Fall/Winter 2002 newsletter, on the Web page of the Thornhill Garden and Horticultural Society http:// members.aol.com/wdall/pages/newsoct02.html
-- scroll down past the "hort news" and stuff until you reach the article entitled "To Mulch or Not To Mulch?" (the overall consensus, BTW, is defintely YES!)
Good luck with it, jag. I have used mulch and an annual compost "dose", with a weekly application of an all-purpose water soluble fertilizer (many swear by Miracle-Gro) on my beds in Ottawa's Lowertown area, and my shrubs (hedge) and perennial border are doing much better than those around me. Especially in the hot days of deep Ottawa summers!
I just wanted to mention that I read somewhere that those large bark chips are not ideal for gardens because they steal the nitrogen from the soil.
thank you so much for your detailed reply. I learned a lot. What I have are definitely bigger "barK' pieces so I will look into getting mulch to cover the beds. I have seen signs around town in the past about the mushroom compost. I"ll look into it.
Thanks again
especially here in Ottawa with our dry and hot summers! If what you had was the large bark CHIPS, however, that's another thing altogether. Those are really meant to be "decorative" not functional -- "functional" mulch is more like shredded stuff (usually bark, cedar, pine, whatever, even broken up coco shells) that kind of sticks together, and it's purpose is to hold moisture and prevent weeds. You will want about 3" deep of it (don't skimp!). You can get it at a number of places around Ottawa, but my favourite is Artistic Landscape on Bank Street. You can buy it in bulk or by the bag. It usually needs to be renewed every coupdl of years, becasue it will biodegrade - thereby enriching your soil as anotehr "function"!! Some people get the dyed red stuff, but I don't care forr it myself, besides you don't know what they used to dye it with!
If your soil is looking "tired" you probably need some good old manure -- there is a guy (calls himself "That Compost Guy") who sells mushroom compost around town with a share of the cost going to the Cancer Society -- good stuff. Put on about 1-2" around your garden, or dig in around the plants. I do this every year.
They all deliver (the suppliers, that is)
I am sure the mulch was there to help the plants over winter. Then the mulch would be moved off the plants only just a little but the rest left to cut down on weeding. Mulch holds the moisture in the ground. Mulch is a good thing.