Question I haven't been asked about....what do you do with the old mulch? Here is what this author said to do.
What do you do with old mulch that had been left on top of annual flower beds or vegetable beds during the winter? Note that this is a different issue from that of what to do in garden beds that contain live plants (albeit perhaps dormant) right through the winter, where the focus of the question is primarily on the plants. The present FAQ, by contrast, relates to empty beds (living plant material has either died or has been harvested), and the question focuses on the mulch: specifically, whether the old mulch is still viable–and, if so, what you should do with it.
This pertains to biodegradable material (bark, leaves, straw, etc.), not to mulches that do not break down readily (stone, plastic, etc.).
Is Old Mulch Still Good to Use?
Vegetable garden beds and annual flower beds will not have plants in them during the winter but are mulched in fall to protect their soil from the harsh elements in winter. You have worked hard to build up the fertility of your garden soil, so you would not want gusty winds or torrents of water carrying any of it off, would you?
If the condition of the old mulch has not decomposed appreciably by the time spring comes, it will still be usable. How do you determine its condition? Well, scoop up some of the mulch in your hands. Has it more or less broken down into fine particles, so that it is no longer clearly distinguishable from dirt? In that case, it will no longer function very effectively as a mulch; it is time to replace it.
If, however, it has mostly retained the look and feel that it originally had, then you can re-use it. The one exception would be if your plants in this garden bed had experienced disease problems last year that you think can be traced back to the mulch; in which case you would want to remove and dispose of said mulch properly (check with the officials in your town to determine a proper way to dispose of such material).
If, upon inspection, you decide that the old mulch has not, in fact, decomposed appreciably, you should rake the old mulch aside for now so that you can prepare the planting bed. If you need to get it out of the way, shovel the mulch into a wheelbarrow, dumping successive loads onto a tarp off to the side. Apply compost onto the vegetable garden bed or annual flower bed, and till it under or work it into the soil with a spade.
Now you can see why my first instruction was to rake the old mulch aside: in the course of rototilling or spading the compost into the garden, the old mulch would have been tilled or spaded under, forcing you to acquire and apply new mulch. That would be a waste of time, energy and money.
Now put the old mulch back onto the planting bed.
This whole process can be completed well in advance of planting time. When it is time to plant, gently remove the mulch from just the area where you are sowing seeds or transplanting plants. With the mulch already in place in this manner, weeds never get much of a chance to emerge. One thing this author is not saying is that the soil temperature will take longer to warm up with the mulch. So remember that when planting plants or seeds.
But what if the old mulch has, in fact, decomposed appreciably over the course of the winter? In that case, work it into the ground as organic matter so that it can serve as a soil amendment, along with the compost.
What About "Living" Mulches (AKA Cover Crops)?
Although "cover crops" (which are so-called "living mulches) is terminology more often heard in agricultural circles than in landscaping circles, some homeowners may find cover crops quite helpful, so I will conclude with information on how to treat this special kind of "mulch" in spring.
Cover crops are sowed over vegetable garden and annual flower beds in the fall to protect them in winter. When spring returns and you are getting ready to plant again, you need to get a cover crop out of the way. But you can kill two birds with one stone: tilling cover crops under both frees up the garden for spring planting and puts nutrients into the soil.
Mow cover crops first, then run a garden tiller over the garden -- a process known as "tilling under" the cover crops.
By mowing first, the garden tilling will go easier, since you will be tilling shorter vegetation. After mowing, spread compost over the same garden bed, and till that under, too, just as you would with any beds that did not have cover crops.
Taken from https://www.thespruce.com/what-to-do-with-old-mulch-in-spring-
till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky's Greenhouse, Dougherty Iowa beckmall@netins.net
April 28,2018
Read these spring landscape maintenance tips as soon as Old Man Winter eases his icy grip on your gardens, so that you can hit the ground running once warmer temperatures prevail. For those of you who have large lawns, spring cleaning in the yard has its share of lawn chores. But there is much more to take care of, whether it be pruning the winterkill off an arborvitae or getting rid of dandelions.
Some of it is fairly obvious (such as remembering to remove any burlap that you have used for winter protection for shrubs), but other tasks are easy to overlook.
When to Take Mulch Off Perennials: the Long Answer
To a large degree, getting the timing right for mulch removal requires you to be observant regarding your plants and the weather conditions where you live.
If your memory is not good, it helps to keep a garden journal from year to year.
But, after a while, all of this should become second nature for you. You will know when spring is "here for good" in your region, and you will know when your perennials are really supposed to be pushing up new growth for the year. When, based on past observations, the time has come for spring to wrest control from winter (that is, the chance of suffering a hard frost has passed) and for a particular perennial to emerge from its slumber, you should begin checking to see whether the ground is thawing or not. If the ground is thawing, leaving landscaping mulch on top of your perennial flowers can smother them or invite harmful molds -- so it is time to remove the mulch, to let your perennials breathe.
While perennials sometimes will successfully break through a barrier of mulch, other times damage will result.
Don't take a chance with the health of your perennial flowers!
Even if a covering of mulch does not completely smother a plant, it can, at the very least, disfigure its leaves. Part of the beauty of a plant is its foliage and stems (vegetation). If the vegetation has to struggle to push up through a layer of coarse mulch, doing so may take a toll on the appearance of its vegetation, initially. While no permanent harm is done, this does temporarily mar the visual display for you. Since enjoying the visual display to the fullest is the reason why you are growing the plant, this is not an unimportant consideration.
Once the perennial flowers have pushed up and have achieved a bit of height, then you can re-apply garden mulch around them to suppress weeds. Shredded leaves make for an excellent mulch because they are light and fluffy; they break down readily and -- when they do so -- release valuable nutrients into the soil.
taken from https://www.thespruce.com/when-to-remove-mulch-for-spring-perennials-
till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky's Greenhouse, Dougherty Iowa beckmall@netins.net
What do you do with old mulch that had been left on top of annual flower beds or vegetable beds during the winter? Note that this is a different issue from that of what to do in garden beds that contain live plants (albeit perhaps dormant) right through the winter, where the focus of the question is primarily on the plants. The present FAQ, by contrast, relates to empty beds (living plant material has either died or has been harvested), and the question focuses on the mulch: specifically, whether the old mulch is still viable–and, if so, what you should do with it.
This pertains to biodegradable material (bark, leaves, straw, etc.), not to mulches that do not break down readily (stone, plastic, etc.).
Is Old Mulch Still Good to Use?
Vegetable garden beds and annual flower beds will not have plants in them during the winter but are mulched in fall to protect their soil from the harsh elements in winter. You have worked hard to build up the fertility of your garden soil, so you would not want gusty winds or torrents of water carrying any of it off, would you?
If the condition of the old mulch has not decomposed appreciably by the time spring comes, it will still be usable. How do you determine its condition? Well, scoop up some of the mulch in your hands. Has it more or less broken down into fine particles, so that it is no longer clearly distinguishable from dirt? In that case, it will no longer function very effectively as a mulch; it is time to replace it.
If, however, it has mostly retained the look and feel that it originally had, then you can re-use it. The one exception would be if your plants in this garden bed had experienced disease problems last year that you think can be traced back to the mulch; in which case you would want to remove and dispose of said mulch properly (check with the officials in your town to determine a proper way to dispose of such material).
If, upon inspection, you decide that the old mulch has not, in fact, decomposed appreciably, you should rake the old mulch aside for now so that you can prepare the planting bed. If you need to get it out of the way, shovel the mulch into a wheelbarrow, dumping successive loads onto a tarp off to the side. Apply compost onto the vegetable garden bed or annual flower bed, and till it under or work it into the soil with a spade.
Now you can see why my first instruction was to rake the old mulch aside: in the course of rototilling or spading the compost into the garden, the old mulch would have been tilled or spaded under, forcing you to acquire and apply new mulch. That would be a waste of time, energy and money.
Now put the old mulch back onto the planting bed.
This whole process can be completed well in advance of planting time. When it is time to plant, gently remove the mulch from just the area where you are sowing seeds or transplanting plants. With the mulch already in place in this manner, weeds never get much of a chance to emerge. One thing this author is not saying is that the soil temperature will take longer to warm up with the mulch. So remember that when planting plants or seeds.
But what if the old mulch has, in fact, decomposed appreciably over the course of the winter? In that case, work it into the ground as organic matter so that it can serve as a soil amendment, along with the compost.
What About "Living" Mulches (AKA Cover Crops)?
Although "cover crops" (which are so-called "living mulches) is terminology more often heard in agricultural circles than in landscaping circles, some homeowners may find cover crops quite helpful, so I will conclude with information on how to treat this special kind of "mulch" in spring.
Cover crops are sowed over vegetable garden and annual flower beds in the fall to protect them in winter. When spring returns and you are getting ready to plant again, you need to get a cover crop out of the way. But you can kill two birds with one stone: tilling cover crops under both frees up the garden for spring planting and puts nutrients into the soil.
Mow cover crops first, then run a garden tiller over the garden -- a process known as "tilling under" the cover crops.
By mowing first, the garden tilling will go easier, since you will be tilling shorter vegetation. After mowing, spread compost over the same garden bed, and till that under, too, just as you would with any beds that did not have cover crops.
Taken from https://www.thespruce.com/what-to-do-with-old-mulch-in-spring-
till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky's Greenhouse, Dougherty Iowa beckmall@netins.net
April 28,2018
Read these spring landscape maintenance tips as soon as Old Man Winter eases his icy grip on your gardens, so that you can hit the ground running once warmer temperatures prevail. For those of you who have large lawns, spring cleaning in the yard has its share of lawn chores. But there is much more to take care of, whether it be pruning the winterkill off an arborvitae or getting rid of dandelions.
Some of it is fairly obvious (such as remembering to remove any burlap that you have used for winter protection for shrubs), but other tasks are easy to overlook.
When to Take Mulch Off Perennials: the Long Answer
To a large degree, getting the timing right for mulch removal requires you to be observant regarding your plants and the weather conditions where you live.
If your memory is not good, it helps to keep a garden journal from year to year.
But, after a while, all of this should become second nature for you. You will know when spring is "here for good" in your region, and you will know when your perennials are really supposed to be pushing up new growth for the year. When, based on past observations, the time has come for spring to wrest control from winter (that is, the chance of suffering a hard frost has passed) and for a particular perennial to emerge from its slumber, you should begin checking to see whether the ground is thawing or not. If the ground is thawing, leaving landscaping mulch on top of your perennial flowers can smother them or invite harmful molds -- so it is time to remove the mulch, to let your perennials breathe.
While perennials sometimes will successfully break through a barrier of mulch, other times damage will result.
Don't take a chance with the health of your perennial flowers!
Even if a covering of mulch does not completely smother a plant, it can, at the very least, disfigure its leaves. Part of the beauty of a plant is its foliage and stems (vegetation). If the vegetation has to struggle to push up through a layer of coarse mulch, doing so may take a toll on the appearance of its vegetation, initially. While no permanent harm is done, this does temporarily mar the visual display for you. Since enjoying the visual display to the fullest is the reason why you are growing the plant, this is not an unimportant consideration.
Once the perennial flowers have pushed up and have achieved a bit of height, then you can re-apply garden mulch around them to suppress weeds. Shredded leaves make for an excellent mulch because they are light and fluffy; they break down readily and -- when they do so -- release valuable nutrients into the soil.
taken from https://www.thespruce.com/when-to-remove-mulch-for-spring-perennials-
till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky's Greenhouse, Dougherty Iowa beckmall@netins.net
