Mulching
Mulching protects the soil from a proliferation of weeds around plants or trees and shrubs.
It maintains the humidity in the soil during the summer and in Winter it protects it from heavy frost.
With strawberries, for example, it protects them from dirt in the soil.
Mulch can be composed of different materials:
Natural Mulching
- cut or chopped straw if you have some nearby.
- bark from maritime pine which exists in pieces of different sizes is ideal for plants in heathland soil, and also for banks of trees and shrubs or Mediterranean plants. Spread a layer of at least 5 cms. thick. It lasts about 4 or 5 years.
- wood chips are difficult to keep in place.
- grass clippings are nitrogen-rich and decompose rapidly. This decomposition may burn plants. It lasts several months.
- linen flakes are interesting but they don't stay in place very well.
- the same can be said for dead leaves.
- cocoa shells should be used in a layer of 5 cms. thick. They supply nitrogen by decomposing on site. Lifespan 1 year.
- for plants suited to acid soil (hortensias, camilias etc.), ground pine needles are interesting.
- ground dried fern, rich in potassium and silica (good for many plants, especially peonies and Christmas roses and other hellebores). If you want to please your roses, add nettles to the ground fern, but be careful, you must pick them before they produce their seeds!
- mulch from poplar tree bark is pH neutral and is therefore ideal for embankments. should be used in a layer of at least 5 cms.. It has a two-year lifespan.
- mulch from the central part of the cannabis stem has a lifespan of two years.
Other types of Mulching
- plastic film, which is easier to install before planting plants
- gravel
- pebbles
- sand
- recyclable cardboard
- crushed brick
- slate broken into pieces
- pozzolana (lava stone)
Organic mulching is interesting because, as well as the aforementioned qualities, it decomposes slowly and supplies useful material to the plants and to the worms which help integrate these materials into the soil.