I'm finding mulch to be fantastic as a temporary measure rather than a permanent one. If you have the materials, smothering edge areas with something that will break down relatively quickly is a great way to prevent soil errosion in barer spots while you establish new plants until they can seed and spread on their own. You don't need to mulch so heavily that you smother out the "seed bank" and completely prevent things from popping through. Planting into thick turf and/or turf mixed with very aggressive invasives has not worked nearly as well for me. Especially when you're trying to establish native graminoids (which everyone should).
Kelly Norris says: "Just keep planting". Also, 4 years ago, I shook herb seeds in my "lawn" and now I have thyme, violets, mints, self-heal and more growing in the "grass" which is cut at the highest level of my mower a couple times a month.
I started with your standard square suburban lawn years ago. I edged the grass creatively years ago to give a defined edge between "lawn" and wildness. Every couple years I move the rocks further into the the "lawn". When I do this, I put newspaper under rocks. After 20 years I a very small patch to mow which is grand for an elder.
Thank you so much for the wonderful tour! At our house, we call that “Admiration Hour” in honor of a dear friend who ran a nursery in WV for many years and always reminded us to stop and admire the successes of the day.
Sheet mulching definitionally requires the sheet part (frequently cardboard, though virgin paper roll works in some situations), not just mulch. Ditto the lasagna method. You may know this, it’s just confusing how the description above was written.
In my town we don’t call wood chips a mulch, as we only use them (8-12” for 6 weeks) to smother (no sheet) and then remove it. That’s called the deep chip method. Though sometimes folks will leave the degraded chip indefinitely, especially in areas with invasives. The Garden Professors can point you in the right direction with that.
I am investigating a new sheet mulching method with a special “smother sheet,” and then only a small amount of wood bark mulch (or chip, if it’s available).
Just some notes, as I’m focusing more and more on lawn reduction.
re: catnip lotion as a mosquito repellent. I just pull a few stalks of catnip and rub it on my skin. It works. Catnip is a bit invasive so it needed to be pulled, anyway.
Love that as a use for an invasive plant. Recently, I've been making indoor arrangements of invasive bellflower to similarly kill two birds with one stone:)
Also, Heather… I’m talking to someone soon about a novel method which may be useful—steam weeding. One huge benefit is there is no disruption to the soil profile. I’ll follow up with my thoughts.
I love the discussion as much as the post. One of the reasons I like mulch is because yes, it breaks down. And you can vary the thickness and even move it if you need to, and if you miss some, oh well, it will break down.
Eg—in my dry hot penstemon beds, I do use mulch, but it’s a thinner layer than in my rain gardens.
I love a living mulch. Bouteloua gracilis (blue grama grass) is my favorite.
I love to mulch with leaves and or half decomposed leaf mold. (Again, mind the thickness of your layers.)
One thing I am always struck by is that while there are definitely gardening universals, I think climate, geography, etc influence all of these.
I did a tour of my garden this weekend. I tried tried tried to explain well that different microsites have different conditions and need to be planted and treated differently. I so hope it made sense. I also encourage people to poke around and see how thick it is (or isn’t) and where it’s breaking down (or isn’t).
I’m very active in Wild Ones and starting a nursery. I am the one who connected ZE with BL for LLML (she’ll understand those abbreviations if you don’t). 😘
I'm finding mulch to be fantastic as a temporary measure rather than a permanent one. If you have the materials, smothering edge areas with something that will break down relatively quickly is a great way to prevent soil errosion in barer spots while you establish new plants until they can seed and spread on their own. You don't need to mulch so heavily that you smother out the "seed bank" and completely prevent things from popping through. Planting into thick turf and/or turf mixed with very aggressive invasives has not worked nearly as well for me. Especially when you're trying to establish native graminoids (which everyone should).
Great points, Matt!
Kelly Norris says: "Just keep planting". Also, 4 years ago, I shook herb seeds in my "lawn" and now I have thyme, violets, mints, self-heal and more growing in the "grass" which is cut at the highest level of my mower a couple times a month.
I started with your standard square suburban lawn years ago. I edged the grass creatively years ago to give a defined edge between "lawn" and wildness. Every couple years I move the rocks further into the the "lawn". When I do this, I put newspaper under rocks. After 20 years I a very small patch to mow which is grand for an elder.
Progressive bed building—great innovation, Linda!
Thank you so much for the wonderful tour! At our house, we call that “Admiration Hour” in honor of a dear friend who ran a nursery in WV for many years and always reminded us to stop and admire the successes of the day.
I love that! Thank you.
Sheet mulching definitionally requires the sheet part (frequently cardboard, though virgin paper roll works in some situations), not just mulch. Ditto the lasagna method. You may know this, it’s just confusing how the description above was written.
In my town we don’t call wood chips a mulch, as we only use them (8-12” for 6 weeks) to smother (no sheet) and then remove it. That’s called the deep chip method. Though sometimes folks will leave the degraded chip indefinitely, especially in areas with invasives. The Garden Professors can point you in the right direction with that.
I am investigating a new sheet mulching method with a special “smother sheet,” and then only a small amount of wood bark mulch (or chip, if it’s available).
Just some notes, as I’m focusing more and more on lawn reduction.
Super helpful, Jimmy. The “deep mulch” method is entirely new to me and interesting.
You’re welcome! It’s covered in this video (about halfway in) if you’re interested. It’s a hot composting method.
https://vibrantgardening.substack.com/p/lawn-reduction-and-native-planting
re: catnip lotion as a mosquito repellent. I just pull a few stalks of catnip and rub it on my skin. It works. Catnip is a bit invasive so it needed to be pulled, anyway.
Love that as a use for an invasive plant. Recently, I've been making indoor arrangements of invasive bellflower to similarly kill two birds with one stone:)
Also, Heather… I’m talking to someone soon about a novel method which may be useful—steam weeding. One huge benefit is there is no disruption to the soil profile. I’ll follow up with my thoughts.
Sounds promising. I look forward to hearing more.
I love the discussion as much as the post. One of the reasons I like mulch is because yes, it breaks down. And you can vary the thickness and even move it if you need to, and if you miss some, oh well, it will break down.
Eg—in my dry hot penstemon beds, I do use mulch, but it’s a thinner layer than in my rain gardens.
I love a living mulch. Bouteloua gracilis (blue grama grass) is my favorite.
I love to mulch with leaves and or half decomposed leaf mold. (Again, mind the thickness of your layers.)
One thing I am always struck by is that while there are definitely gardening universals, I think climate, geography, etc influence all of these.
I too use leaves as mulch, as well as green mulch. So true about the many, many site-specific influences!
I did a tour of my garden this weekend. I tried tried tried to explain well that different microsites have different conditions and need to be planted and treated differently. I so hope it made sense. I also encourage people to poke around and see how thick it is (or isn’t) and where it’s breaking down (or isn’t).
Kudos for you for doing a tour!
I’m very active in Wild Ones and starting a nursery. I am the one who connected ZE with BL for LLML (she’ll understand those abbreviations if you don’t). 😘
I’ll have to ask Z;)