Keeping the Soil and the Garden Healthy Through Mulching

What Is Mulching?

“Mulch is any type of material that is spread or laid over the surface of the soil as a covering.” – gardening.about.com

From the definition above, we can say that mulching is basically placing a type of covering on the soil, specifically soil that’s been planted on. This method or practice is often used in landscaping, especially when it comes to the gardening part of it.

Mulches are often made out of organic materials, but they can also be made out of plastic sheets, but then these become permanent mulches. Some of the organic materials used in making mulches are shredded leaves, bark, grass clippings, and more.

About two layers of mulch are applied onto the surface soil of gardens for a variety of reasons, and usually have to be reapplied at different times of the year. This is because the plants in the garden will have different needs depending on the season.

For example, during summer or hot seasons, mulching is needed in order to retain water in the soil by reducing evaporation. It should be noted though that the type of mulch to be used should be able to still let water pass through into the soil. Certain mulch types can tend to absorb all the water, which prevents and blocks the water from reaching the soil.

What Are the Benefits of Mulching?

Mulching does more than enhance the look of a garden through creating a neat and unique-looking soil surface. It’s quite beneficial in a lot of other ways, especially in the gardens and plants it’s used for.

To have a better idea on this, here are examples of these said benefits of mulching:

• Mulching controls weed growth. Weeds pop out of nowhere and can be a real nuisance to a garden, especially since it steals nutrients from the plants we have in our garden! They come out of any possible open space we might have in our gardens, and tend to grow quite fast too. Regularly pulling out weeds can be quite tedious, and it’s definitely something we can refrain from doing. Mulching though can help prevent the growth of weeds since it acts as a barrier and limits the amount of sunlight that reaches the weeds and helps them grow.
• Mulching retains moisture. As mentioned earlier, mulch is great for retaining moisture as it covers the soil and significantly reduces the rate of evaporation. Uncovered dirt easily loses moisture, especially in warm seasons due to evaporation, and simply covering the dirt with mulch will help prevent it from drying up. This also reduces the need to frequently irrigate our gardens. Mulch also reduces soil erosion as it prevents the soil from washing out of the garden. To sum it all up, since mulching reduces evaporation, it also reduces the frequency of irrigation, and thus reduces our water consumption!
• Mulching evens out soil temperature. Mulch’s handy moisture-retention abilities are what helps keep the soil at a cool temperature during hot, summer seasons. The extra covering is also what keeps the soil warm during the cold, winter seasons. Maintaining the right and even soil temperature is also essential for keeping the plants in a garden nice and healthy, so they don’t wither too easily.

Landscape Design Services in Penrith

Mulching is among one of the landscaping services we offer to homes in Penrith and all over Sydney here at Surreal Landscapes! We also do other sorts of landscaping and maintenance services, all the details are on our website at www.surreallandscapes.com.au.

Keep the garden healthy and beautiful for a longer time without having to use too much water, let us get to work and mulch it!