Spring has come early this year, and you’re so excited — so much so you’re even excited to do the hard work of pruning, and weeding, and raking. Why? Because that means soon it will be time for the fun to begin.
Soon it will be time for mulch!
A solid layer of mulch spread over a garden bed helps to suppress weed growth, retain moisture, and moderate soil temperature. As a bonus, it’s decorative.
That being said, it’s important to not to go overboard. Over-mulching is a big problem we see a lot, as northern Virginia’s landscape supply provider, and is a practice that can actually harm plants by creating a layer that doesn’t decompose and doesn’t allow for proper root growth; the soil becomes so matted that the water and nutrients plant roots need to survive can’t reach deep enough. (And then there’s the terrible, terrible practice of volcano mulching, but that was a different blog post on a different day.)
The recommendation from northern Virginia’s landscape supply provider is to rid your garden beds of as much of the old mulch as you can before adding an inch of new mulch. Start with stripped beds; add one inch a year, and you’ll only have to strip them once every three years. Keep in mind: the ultimate goal is to keep the mulch layer less than three inches deep.
There is a right way to apply mulch.
Step one: Open bag. Step two: Dump in garden bed, and spread.
Right? Wrong.
Dumping the entire contents of a bag of pine bark mulch into your garden all at once will create too thick a layer. It’s a much better idea to unload what you’ve purchased from JK Enterprise Landscape Supply into a wheelbarrow before spreading it nice and even with your hands, a square shovel, or a mulch fork.
Take care to never put mulch on top of ground covers, spreading junipers, your grass, or even a tarp on the grass, because it could limit their growth or worse.
Buy your mulch in bulk, and have it delivered right to your door!
It’s your last chance (not to have mulch delivered to your door; we do that for our customers in northern Virginia on the regular) to participate in the madness: MULCH MADNESS. Once every spring, JK Enterprise Landscape Supply partners with the Patriot High School Patriot Pioneers Booster Club for their Annual Mulch Madness Fundraiser. Orders of a little, or a lot placed by Friday, March 18 will be delivered by Patriot High School students, parents, coaches and sponsors on April 2 — so place yours today!
