Mulching Ideas, Tips & Guides

ICYMI, sustainability is in this year, and unsustainable gardening practices are out. Not only are sustainable gardening practices more eco-friendly, but they are also more affordable and result in a low-maintenance and ecologically balanced landscape.

If you’ve ever laid mulch only to watch it wash away mere days later, then you know the deep frustration it causes.

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Sea hollies (Eryngium) have spiky leaves and thistle-like flowers in colours ranging from grey to intense cobalt blue, surrounded by a characteristic ‘ruff’. They make striking garden plants and have excellent wildlife value, particularly for pollinators. There are over 250 species of Eryngium, including plenty of cultivated varieties. As their name suggests, they grow well in coastal areas. They look wonderful in gravel gardens or mixed herbaceous borders.

When you’re pruning in the garden, rather than adding the spent branches to your green bin or bagging them up and taking them to the recycling centre, why not make the most of this valuable resource by shredding it for the compost or for use as a mulch? A garden shredder chips garden waste so that it takes up less room and breaks down quickly and easily, and if you want to save money on compost and mulch in the future, they’re an essential piece of kit.

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A compost bin gives you the satisfaction of turning kitchen and garden waste into rich, crumbly compost, which you can use as a mulch in the garden or mix with loam and leaf mould to make your own potting mix. What’s more, because food and garden waste releases methane (a harmful greenhouse gas) when sent to landfill, composting is good for the planet, too.

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Whether you have a steep, sloping garden or just a small bank, there are some key facts you need to know about gardening on a slope.

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Since entering horticulture professionally over a decade ago, I’ve noticed a correlation on the Colorado Front Range between wood mulch (also called arborist chips) and water-wise gardens. A beautifully designed garden goes in, with appropriate irrigation and plant palette, and the garden looks great—briefly—before languishing. Plants in these beds never quite take off, or they fail before their natural lifespans are over. I casually refer to this as plant/mulch mismatch, and it’s an issue I see too often, maybe because mulch is anything but exciting to the average homeowner.

Photinias are large shrubs or, occasionally, small trees, grown principally for their handsome foliage as well as attractive flowers and fruits, depending on the type. Most photinias are evergreen and by far the most popular and colourful is Photinia ‘Red Robin’, which makes a superb display of leaves that are bright sealing-wax red when young. Photinia is easy to grow in the right conditions, hardy except in cold or exposed sites – and is prone to frost damage – and suits a range of sites and uses around the garden. Photinias are reasonably fast growing, typically putting on 30cm of growth per year, making them an ideal option for a hedge. Depending on the variety, photinia grows from between 1.5 and 4m high and wide.

An even temperature around the roots and a steady supply of moisture in the soil are all important to growing plants. A mulch, applied in early summer after hot weather begins, tends to maintain these conditions as well as to control harmful weeds.

Some people prefer the milder flavor of shallot, Allium ascalonicum, which they grow in place of onions. However, shallots are grown for pickling. When stocks of non-bolting onion sets were not available, many gardeners found shallot growing far easier than onion growing. The soil in which they are to be grown must be well-drained and, unless very large bulbs are required, without manure or fertilizers. A very poor soil is greatly improved by being mulched with garden compost just prior to planting time.

The cabbage family includes the following vegetables that grow best in cool weather: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, kale, collards, and a delicious, yet little-known vegetable, called kohlrabi. Most of these vegetables are sold as transplants in the spring and again in late summer for planting in the fall garden. They are not difficult to grow if you give them plenty of space, ample moisture, and keep them well fed at all times.

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Raspberries are easy and cheap to grow, providing you with sweet and delicious fruit that tastes so much better when picked fresh on a warm summer’s day. Raspberries are categorised into ‘summer-fruiting’ and ‘autumn-fruiting’ types. Summer-fruiting raspberries fruit on the previous year’s growth and are typically tall plants that require staking. Autumn-fruiting raspberries are shorter and usually less vigorous, and fruit on the current season’s growth. Growing a variety of the two types means you could be successionally harvesting your own delicious raspberries from late June through to October.

Cherries make a wonderful tree for all sizes of garden. Many varieties are attractive trees, bearing spring blossom, colourful fruit, interesting bark and leafy foliage that turns orange, red and yellow in autumn.

The gardener must at times give plants protection against too intense light and against excessively high temperatures.

An established hedge is a valuable commodity well worth taking good care of, but even then eventually it may grow too large. Deciduous hedges however can usually be rejuvenated, given a little patience.

I constantly have mulch coming onto my driveway and walkway. I need a simple and clean edge to keep things in place.

There’s a nightmare scenario among gardeners: you spend hundreds of hours ensuring your plants are happy, healthy, and growing strong, only for your work to be usurped by an unexpected drop in temperature.

Most councils will recycle your Christmas tree, but little is as sad, in those grey days post-Christmas, than the sight of enormous piles of discarded trees at drop-off points, waiting to be collected. Councils normally shred them and use the chippings as mulches in parks or woodland areas, so there’s nothing to stop you doing the same at home.

Increasingly, news outlets are discovering something interesting: their audiences are tired of gloom and doom stories. Instead of only covering what’s not working, readers want the media to cover what is working: ideas, solutions and actions that are making positive change in the world.

Protecting your plants from frost is an important step to take before winters start to knock on your garden’s door. We’ll share some expert strategies and easy-to-implement ideas to keep your plants cozy and safe.

Some people are particular about the garden tools they use. Others take it less seriously and are content with the cheapest things they can find. I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m not one to waste money on overpriced brands, but I do want durable tools that last a good while. Just as important, they need to do the job and be up for the conditions under which I’ll be using them.

When the celebrations are over and decorations have been packed away, it’s time to think about how to reuse your cut Christmas tree, instead of sending it to landfill. From shredding it to make mulch to using it as a frame for climbing plants, there are many ways to put the wood and needles to good use.

Deutzias are easy to grow, hardy deciduous shrubs that make beautiful displays of massed pink or white flowers in early to mid-summer. Numerous small five-petalled cup or saucer shaped flowers are borne profusely in clusters or racemes along twiggy arching branches, contrasting with mid-green toothed-edged leaves.

Jasmines are evergreen or deciduous climbers with twining stems. They can be summer or winter flowering, with flowers that are white, yellow and occasionally red and pink.

As winter begins to focus in our rear-view mirror, you’ll start to see your garden change. If you have tender summer-flowering plants in your garden, it's time to start thinking about whether to lift and store them or protect them from the harsh clutches of winter.

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