Guide To Gardening

Pebbles

Gravel, pebbles, or crushed rock make an elegant mulch, and they are often used for the front of the house, where looks are everything. Colors include white, grey, shades of beige-brown, and a dark auburn for volcanic rock. These colors can be selected to blend with your home or patio.

Be careful when putting stone mulches close to a lawn, because mowers can pick up and throw the pieces. This can cause very serious injury to the person mowing and to passers-by. Rock mulches don't integrate into soil over time, the way organic materials will. They tend to scatter onto adjacent pathways, so put down more rock about every 5 years.

•The muted shades and smooth texture of pebbles look particularly attractive next to plants of different hues of green, such as golden creeping jenny and bugle. The effect looks voy natural.

Black poluitherte

I call this black bin-liner plastic, which, to me, describes it better. Sold in rolls from about 30 to 120 centimeters wide, black plastic makes a functional, if unattractive, mulch. Sunlight doesn't penetrate the plastic, so weed germination (and thus weed survival) is minimal. An added benefit is its heat-holding capacity Planting within black plastic is simple. You carefully cut a hole in the plastic where you want your plant to grow. Then you dig a planting hole, backfilling with a mixture of soil and organic matter. Plants sited within a plastic mulch stay about 5 degrees warmer than their plastic-free neighbors. Those few degrees can mean the
PLASTIC MULCH
survival of tender plants when the weather fluctuates.
Many gardeners use black plastic covered with a layer of bark chippings or gravel.
The covering enhances the plastic's appearance, endurance, and safety. Plastic without a covering can be slippery when wet. Covered, it is less exposed to the elements and to damage caused by foot traffic. If you do decide to use this lightweight material alone, you will have to weight it down. You can do this with either soil or rocks.
Black plastic will shred after a few years. If unprotected, plan on replacing it in 2 to 3 years. Note that plastic is not the best choice on poorly drained areas, because it holds the moisture in the ground.
Wood products
Bark chips, usually brown or reddish-brown, often come from pine, cedar, fir, or Scandinavian redwood trees. Quite natural looking, bark chips make a very attractive mulch. Some gardeners put a layer of black plastic beneath the bark to help keep weeds away. Bark chunks, available in various sizes, tend to scatter or thin after a while. Plan on augmenting them every 2 to 3 years. The larger the size initially the longer bark chips last and the less they tend to scatter. Another option is to use small wood chips in various sizes. Spread them in a generous layer that
BARK CHIPS is around about 7 centimeters deep. If these small wood chips are used continually and not mixed with anything else, you may need to add a bit of extra nitrogen fertilizer.
If you're considering sawdust, use only well-composted sawdust. If you simply can't wait, you can mix it with shredded fallen leaves or straw bits to break it up. As with chipped wood, some gardeners like to add some extra nitrogen fertilizer to their sawdust mulch.
In some areas there is a plethora of pines, and therefore pine needles. They are quite useful as a mulch if you have acid-loving plants, such as azaleas, camellias, chrysanthemums, and rhododendrons. However, you must remember never to smoke a cigarette or use a match around dry pine needles. They are extremely flammable. Old, shredded, oak leaves are also useful around acid-loving plants.
Your recticled garden
Fallen leaves and dried lawn clippings must be used as a team in order to make an effective mulch. Using just leaves, or just lawn clippings, will eventually result in a matted, smelly damp blanket.
•Bark chunks and chips help to control weeds by blocking out the light. The mulch will need augmenting, but should last for several years.

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