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.
I live in an area with heavy clay soil. Mulch, to me, is the only amendment I will bother with, but it is necessary at least for the first few years to allow more oxygen into the soil as it breaks down into better soil. But leaves for mulch? Of course. Or pine needles. Or organic shredded mulch. And I love green mulch where the soil allows it -- that's the best!
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:)
You encourage violets everywhere? Me too! Violets are my main green mulch. They really filled in my large beds when I first started out with native plantings. They are still there, along with wild strawberry. I love them in my mini woodland area where they also line both sides of the path. I live on the back side of a ridge so it is not uncommon to go for numerous weeks without any precipitation. Violets are my "canary in a coal mine". When I see the violets really starting to wilt, it's time to do some supplemental watering. Even plants that can handle dry shade are usually starting to languish about the time the violets are letting me know just how dry things are. Sometimes I am tempted to fill my flower beds with wood mulch. Green mulch can look so awful this time of year when it gets so hot and dry. I haven't succumbed to temptation yet and am enjoying my self-seeders where ever they happen to pop up.
Violets, Strawberries, and Potentilla cover ground in my yard, too! Fringed Loosestrife fills the middle space in much the same way and I welcome them all.
We are of one mind! Here the green mulch stays green, though the turf grass turns brown. I love that you have a bellwether species to guide your watering.
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.
I think you mentioned leaving dead leaves on your plants. I’ve been removing yellow leaves off of my milkweed and other flowering plants. Is there a reason to leave them be? Thanks!
Hi, Shannon. I was talking about leaving autumn leaves where they fall or even raking them into beds as mulch, not dead leaves on plants in growing season. I also leave the dead stalks and leaves of dormant perennials either in place or "chop and drop." I don't generally remove dead leaves from plants. A reason to leave them might be to support beneficial microbia that might live there.
I have the 1913 book "What England Can Teach Us About Gardening" by an American, Wilhelm Miller, Ph.D. (from my grandfather) The author admits that England is beautiful and we could use their design ideas, but NOT their plant material, suggesting Americans use "70% native plants, 10% Chinese and Japanese, and 10% European and horticultural." We all know how using Asian and European plants often backfired spectacularly, but he had the right idea! Plus, he enthused, we have so many shrubs here!
So cool! And although there were some major gaffes, as you point out, there are indeed Asian and European plants worth planting (not that I feel much need:)
Would you consider doing a post about your planting into lawn method? What type of lawn did you start with (true turf? a typical “weedy” lawn?). I tried this method early on in my unlawning experimentation, but had to pivot and was unable to see it through. I run an organization that provides free native garden/habitat creation coaching & more information on this method would be super helpful. I agree that mulched beds are ugly, but have found sheet mulching the best method so far -- by planting dense, I can live with the wood mulch for a year.
I really was inspired by your backyard tour. We have let out yard go fallow, no mowing, and it is surprising how many herbal "weeds" there are and beautiful mounds of tall grasses, loads of plantain both narrow and broad leaf, clover, sorrell, red clover which I seeded, tons of purple, white and purple & white violets, dandelions galore. Oh, and there was a 7 foot tall thistle I named her Queen Thistle. We have let the plants go wild and to seed for 2 years now. I was in a quandry how to make it habitable for humans and your tour helped me with that. Thanks.
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!
I live in an area with heavy clay soil. Mulch, to me, is the only amendment I will bother with, but it is necessary at least for the first few years to allow more oxygen into the soil as it breaks down into better soil. But leaves for mulch? Of course. Or pine needles. Or organic shredded mulch. And I love green mulch where the soil allows it -- that's the best!
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:)
You encourage violets everywhere? Me too! Violets are my main green mulch. They really filled in my large beds when I first started out with native plantings. They are still there, along with wild strawberry. I love them in my mini woodland area where they also line both sides of the path. I live on the back side of a ridge so it is not uncommon to go for numerous weeks without any precipitation. Violets are my "canary in a coal mine". When I see the violets really starting to wilt, it's time to do some supplemental watering. Even plants that can handle dry shade are usually starting to languish about the time the violets are letting me know just how dry things are. Sometimes I am tempted to fill my flower beds with wood mulch. Green mulch can look so awful this time of year when it gets so hot and dry. I haven't succumbed to temptation yet and am enjoying my self-seeders where ever they happen to pop up.
Violets, Strawberries, and Potentilla cover ground in my yard, too! Fringed Loosestrife fills the middle space in much the same way and I welcome them all.
We are of one mind! Here the green mulch stays green, though the turf grass turns brown. I love that you have a bellwether species to guide your watering.
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
I think you mentioned leaving dead leaves on your plants. I’ve been removing yellow leaves off of my milkweed and other flowering plants. Is there a reason to leave them be? Thanks!
Hi, Shannon. I was talking about leaving autumn leaves where they fall or even raking them into beds as mulch, not dead leaves on plants in growing season. I also leave the dead stalks and leaves of dormant perennials either in place or "chop and drop." I don't generally remove dead leaves from plants. A reason to leave them might be to support beneficial microbia that might live there.
Okay, thanks for your response. I definitely leave everything in autumn.
I have the 1913 book "What England Can Teach Us About Gardening" by an American, Wilhelm Miller, Ph.D. (from my grandfather) The author admits that England is beautiful and we could use their design ideas, but NOT their plant material, suggesting Americans use "70% native plants, 10% Chinese and Japanese, and 10% European and horticultural." We all know how using Asian and European plants often backfired spectacularly, but he had the right idea! Plus, he enthused, we have so many shrubs here!
So cool! And although there were some major gaffes, as you point out, there are indeed Asian and European plants worth planting (not that I feel much need:)
Would you consider doing a post about your planting into lawn method? What type of lawn did you start with (true turf? a typical “weedy” lawn?). I tried this method early on in my unlawning experimentation, but had to pivot and was unable to see it through. I run an organization that provides free native garden/habitat creation coaching & more information on this method would be super helpful. I agree that mulched beds are ugly, but have found sheet mulching the best method so far -- by planting dense, I can live with the wood mulch for a year.
Hello, Qay. Yes, I’ll write about that soon. I have experience with Northeast and Southwest turf grasses. Where are you located?
I really was inspired by your backyard tour. We have let out yard go fallow, no mowing, and it is surprising how many herbal "weeds" there are and beautiful mounds of tall grasses, loads of plantain both narrow and broad leaf, clover, sorrell, red clover which I seeded, tons of purple, white and purple & white violets, dandelions galore. Oh, and there was a 7 foot tall thistle I named her Queen Thistle. We have let the plants go wild and to seed for 2 years now. I was in a quandry how to make it habitable for humans and your tour helped me with that. Thanks.
Thank you! I am a huge fan of creating a circuit, of your house if possible, and maybe putting a few seating destinations along it. Magic.
That would be great, thank you! I am located in Ohio
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;)