When Not To Use Mulch in Your Garden

Most of the time, mulch does wonders for your garden. It looks good, keeps the weeds at bay, holds in moisture and insulates the roots of your plants from frost or freeze. It even rots and becomes fertilize for your beloved petunias and roses. But you may not know that if mulch isn’t used at the right time or if it isn’t applied properly, it may actually harm your beautiful garden.

If your garden is muddy and wet in early spring, applying mulch may delay the process of the ground in your garden warming up for the spring, which will not only hinder your planting and digging, but will delay the growth of those cute little first signs of spring we all enjoy seeing, like when those bulbs warm up and the tulips pop their little heads up from the cold, dark ground of winter. Early spring is the perfect time to remove the mulch from your garden, which you applied last fall when you lovingly tucked your garden in for the winter. This will help it wake up and give the sun a little more room to warm everything up.

You should also only apply mulch around your plants after they are well established. Smothering your tender young sprouts with mulch will most certainly kill them most of the time. The only time you should use mulch with seedlings or when sowing seeds is when you sow new grass seed. Straw is the mulch of choice for this because it is light and airy, and it protects your seeds and seedlings from being blown around by the wind or eaten by your fine feathered friends.

After you use mulch for a long time, it can attract insects, rodents and other pests that will go searching in your mulch for food, shelter from the weather or just to cool off. If pests become a problem, you might want to consider removing the mulch, especially if you notice the pests nibbling on your plants.


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *