It's Not Work, It's Gardening!: mulch

Showing posts with label mulch. Show all posts

Showing posts with label mulch. Show all posts

Tired of mulch

>> Wednesday, February 26, 2014 – mulch

Well, at least my legs are. Tired of mulch that is. That huge (approximately 10 cubic yards) pile of wood chipping on my driveway finally got shifted this past weekend...

...at least partially. Last year I moved the entire pile myself (64 wheelbarrow loads!) over two days, but this year I had a friend helping me for the first day. He loaded while I wheeled, which gave me a short rest in between trips into the back yard. So nice!

Variety.

>> Wednesday, February 12, 2014 – mulch, texture

I learned a little bit about the mulch pile the other day.

Sure you can shell out for high-quality hardwood mulch, a homogeneous mound of oak or other desirable, durable woods. But that seems so boring!

Shift!

>> Monday, February 10, 2014 – mulch

So, that mulch pile that's on my driveway?

It's much larger than I thought it was.

Winter Mulch

>> Wednesday, February 5, 2014 – mulch

In what is becoming an annual part of my winter gardening activities, I once again had a huge load of free wood chips delivered.

Unlike last year when the weather was fairly mild and I could easily cart all sixty-four wheel barrow loads of this organic mulch into the back, this year's delivery came at an inopportune time.

Mulching potted bamboos

>> Thursday, December 5, 2013 – bamboo, mulch, overwintering

Our mild weather (it was 60ºF when I took these photos yesterday morning) will be swept to the south, replaced by frigid air and ice, sleet, or snow -- or probably a mix of all of them. Temperatures are expected to hit single digits F on a couple of nights, which means it's time to mulch.

I've got a lot of potted bamboos that need some protection to keep their roots, rhizomes, and rhizome buds from damage, and burying the pots in mulch is the easiest method I've found. Time is limited so easy is good, but in previous years I've dug a hole before burying them, laid the plants down and tarped over them, and built a greenhouse. This year it's just mulch.

Mulching, planting, chores

>> Saturday, October 26, 2013 – mulch

A short post on a busy day. Although we had our first freeze the other night, temperatures will be in the lower 60's F today so it's a good day to get more fall chores done outside.

For instance, mulching. The free community mulch pile is just what I need...

Discouraging grass and encouraging bamboo

>> Wednesday, September 18, 2013 – bamboo, bamboo rhizomes, mulch

Remember last year when I planted several running bamboos in the "hell strip" (aka "parkway" or "parking strip") in front of my house?

Phase two of this project has recently occurred -- the plan to have these bamboos fill the entire space is taking shape!

A mistake?

>> Monday, April 22, 2013 – mulch

I was hoping to post today about my project that required creative thinking, but I realized I forgot to take a couple of key photos so it will have to wait until tomorrow. Instead I'll post about something I did recently that could end up being a terrible mistake.

For the first time ever I decided to mulch the path on this side of the house. Read on to hear why I thought this was a good idea, and also why it may be a very bad one.

sixty-four!

>> Monday, January 21, 2013 – mulch, timelapse, video

I wasn't planning on doing a lot of mulching this weekend, but the unannounced delivery of the wood chips changed my plans.

Sixty-four wheelbarrow trips later, my driveway was clear. Although you can't share in the four hours of repetition spread over two days (although if you want to experience something like this in my garden I can surely find something for you to do), if you have 42 seconds you can still watch the entire process...

Yes, dumping!

>> Saturday, January 19, 2013 – mulch

Even though I live in suburban St. Louis in a fully residential neighborhood, the terrain required the builders 40 years ago to leave fairly substantial amounts of undeveloped "common ground. I have a narrow strip of this behind my house, but there are larger sections nearby -- the reason we have so much daily deer traffic. The residents who have common ground behind their homes often use the "woods" to dump their yard waste: mainly leaves and sticks. I promote this practice, as those materials quickly break down and certainly don't cause any problems.

Almost everybody is happy with this practice, but there are always exceptions, right? There is one unhappy neighbor who went so far as to put up a "No Dumping" sign in the woods behind his house, even though it was his next-door neighbor who was "dumping" there. Let me make it clear right now that I welcome this unloading of organic matter in my yard!

More filthy mulch

>> Wednesday, January 9, 2013 – mulch

As I've already mentioned, I've been doing some mulching lately. One thing I've learned this year is that when you get a load of good mulch dumped into your truck on a snowy day, you get dirty. Or as two of my neighbors remarked, "filthy" (as in the phrase "why is your truck so filthy?")

The mulch dust stuck to pretty much every surface of the wet vehicle. I've been waiting for more precipitation to take care of this problem for me, but the expected rain last week didn't materialize -- we're still experiencing some level of drought here. I don't think filthiness matters when you're protecting plants and adding a wonderful blanket of organics to your soil, so I've been doing even more mulching.

Correcting a past mistake

>> Thursday, May 3, 2012 – cleanup, mulch, stones

This Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Filicoides' was planted in 2006 when we had the trees taken down and I built the patio area. It was about 4' (1.2m) tall and looked like a nice accent plant for the spot. Labeled as a "slow grower" -- which I disagree with -- it's now a major focal point here.

The trouble is, I "mulched" the area beneath it and the stair landing with rocks. This has caused problems for me, every year being more and more work as weeds come up between the baseball-sized rocks. Since I don't weed this area every week, the resulting carpet of green makes the tree difficult to see, as the ground beneath it is so busy. So I fixed it this past weekend.

The loneliest mulch pile

>> Tuesday, February 14, 2012 – mulch

This weekend I drove past the community mulch pile on the way back from some home improvement shopping and I noticed a nice big pile of free mulch calling out to me. Yelling actually, shouting "I'm mulch, I'm lonely, and I'm free!"

A short while later I was back at the mulch pile, ready to shovel up some some no-cost organic materials.

You're grounded!

>> Saturday, February 4, 2012 – fertilizer, mulch

That's what I said to many of my bamboos this weekend, as I gave them their first fertilization of the year.

Why did I say this? (Why am I talking to the bamboos? They never listen!) Well, I used something new this year -- can you guess what it is?

Veggie garden step 1

>> Thursday, January 12, 2012 – mulch

As you may know, my veggie garden is a small fenced-in area that usually gets a lot of attention from me early in the year, but then by the end of summer it's a neglected, weedy mess. Last year I built some raised beds to help organize things better (and provide better soil), but that didn't exactly work either.

The walkways between the beds became overgrown with weeds, and I'm not sure exactly how or when. I was pretty good with the hoe out here at first, but I think during the hottest part of the summer my will to weed wavered and I let them take hold. Taking advantage of the mild winter weather while it's here, I spent a few minutes the other day to help with this problem.

Path, weeds, moles

>> Thursday, December 1, 2011 – mulch, weeds

Even though I've just recently done this, it's time for another collection of mini-topics.

Starting with a simple solution to a problem I've lived with for at least two years.

Mulching the bamboos

>> Monday, December 6, 2010 – bamboo, mulch

Yesterday after I mulched the horizontal potted bamboos, I mulched several of my in-ground bamboos too. I've been mulching all of them with layers of compost throughout the year, but some of the newly-planted ones haven't had any real mulching yet, or needed a bit more.

Besides providing more protection for the roots and rhizomes, the shredded hardwood mulch really makes the bamboo look great I think.

Protecting the large potted bamboos

>> Sunday, December 5, 2010 – bamboo, mulch, overwintering

An alternate title for this post could be "how to greatly underestimate the time and effort a job will take when it's only 35ºF and windy". My goal was to get my large potted bamboos ready for winter, and although I had a plan ready before I got started, it ended up taking me most of the day.

With temperatures expected to get down into the upper teens (F) Sunday night, I knew I had to get these plants taken care of this weekend, and better to jump into the task today in case something goes wrong and I need more time.

Mulching stage 1: compost

>> Monday, October 25, 2010 – bamboo, compost, mulch

I'm going to be mulching most of my in-ground bamboos and some of the other planting beds in a month or so, to provide them with extra winter protection. The wood chip mulch also helps to condition the soil, adding organic matter as it slowly decomposes. I always mulch my planting beds. Except this year, when I didn't add any new mulch. The old mulch was there, but I never got around to adding the fresh stuff.

For my bamboos, the first step in mulching is to add an inch or two of compost. This isn't really necessary, but I like to baby my bamboos, and compost is always welcome in my garden.

Veggie garden gets some love

>> Tuesday, May 11, 2010 – compost, mulch, vegetables, weeds

I'm pretty bad with neglecting my vegetable garden at various times of the year. You've seen what it looked like at the start of the Spring, and even though I've been getting some seeds in the ground, I've let the weeds take over somewhat:

Time to make amends with some weeding and thinning!

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