Property News · September 9, 2017

How to mulch in autumn | Alys Fowler


Mulching can happen at any time of year, but doing it in autumn makes a lot of senseI filled my pockets with shiny black pebbles I’d collected from the beach. They felt wonderful to dip into, cool and smooth, almost as good as dipping your fingers in a sack of broad bean seeds. Of course, once I was home, the shiny black pebbles looked a little strange in my house, so far from the sea. So I put them around a house plant as mulch. This is more than an aesthetic gesture: non–organic mulches help keep compost gnats away. If not their intended lot in life, it at least gave those pebbles a purpose.The shingle on the beach held another lesson: dig down a couple of inches, and the hot baking surface quickly turns cool and damp, allowing horned poppies and sea kale to send their taproots deeper still to find fresh water and grow, despite their shifting substrate and harsh condition. The shingle acts as a perfect mulch, doing just what a mulch should do: protecting roots from the vagaries of temperature and moisture swings. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
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