Mulch made of organic materials can be a great addition to your yard or your garden because of how it improves the appearance of your landscaping and for the benefits it puts back into your soil. Here are some tips to help you use and benefit from mulch in your yard landscaping and gardening.
Look For Organic Mulch Options
There are a variety of sources from which you can get nutrient-rich mulch for your yard. You can find mulch from a local landscape supplier or from a home and garden retailer, which you can purchase in bags or by the truckload, depending on how much you need and where you access it from. For example, if you order a load of local wood chip mulch from a landscaper, they can deliver it to your home in a dump truck and deposit it into your yard for your use.
You can also find mulch from things that already may be in your yard, such as your lawn, dead tree branches, or fallen leaves and pine needles. If you don't have any of these materials in your yard, you could ask any neighbors if they have some. You might find that your neighbor has a pile of leaves from last fall that they want to get rid of, and they may be able to give them to you to use as mulch.
Prepare the Mulch
When you have a good mulch source from your yard or a neighbor's, make sure you prepare it before adding it to your yard. Tree branches and twigs are organic material, but they need to be chipped down into small pieces before they will make a good mulch. Things like wood chips will provide good ground coverage and help prevent weed growth, but their surfaces will slowly decompose and add nutrients down into the soil.
Leaves can also make a great mulch, but as long as they are shredded. You can use your mower to pick up and shred the leaves into smaller pieces, then you can apply them directly to your mulching areas with your lawnmower bag. You can also combine shredded leaves with lawn clippings to make a more nutrient-diverse mulch. This way, you can keep mulch materials out of landfills.
Place and Use Your Mulch Properly
As you place mulch around your landscaping and over the soil, be sure you add it into the right areas. If you are placing it around trees, be sure to leave a couple of inches of space around the trunk of your tree. Mulch placed right up against your tree trunk can harbor insects and disease. Then, layer your mulch a couple of inches in thickness to get the full benefits to protect your soil against weed growth and to keep moisture in the soil.
For more information, contact a mulching service.