WASHINGTON GARDENER
Mulching Tips
BY KATHY JENTZ On my GardenDC podcast, I recently interviewed Blythe Yost about weeding and mulching. Yost is a landscape architect and Co-Founder & CEO of Tilly Design, an online platform for landscape design. Here are some of the best tips she shared for home gardeners about mulch- ing. Yost said, “When you mulch your garden, I tend to use a natural bark chip mulch. I only use natural mulches. I don’t like any of the dyed products as I don’t think that they are great for the soils.” She noted that cheap, inferior mulches are made from grinding up pres- sure-treated lumber that’s been dyed. “There is also a material that is local to us that I like a lot called Sweet Peet®,” said Yost. “It is com - posted wood shavings from horse stables and it’s beautiful stuff, if you can find it.” Her preferred mulching material is leaf mold (partially composted leaves). “If I can get it or make it myself, it is so much more natural and organic. The closer it is to full compost, in my opinion, the better it is.” To make your own leaf mold, Yost recommends collecting bags of leaves in the fall and putting them in black plastic bags. Set them aside in a forgotten spot, like under a deck, for a season or two. “They kind of partially decompose and form that nice kind of rich humusy mate- rial,” explained Yost. “There is also a spectrum of how quickly those materials are going to break down and add back into the soil. So with our heavy clay soils, a partially-composted leaf mold like Leaf Gro soil conditioner is good as a top dressing,” Yost said. When she is planting something, she will also mix it in with some of the native soil in the planting holes, noting, “It’s got to be a good handful of it.”
She cautions against using full compost for mulching purposes. “It’s not going to really hold the weeds back. I don’t think it’s going to do much for that, but it’s going to do great things for your soils,” said Yost. “I think compost is the best thing we can be adding to our soils. I’d rather see people using that than any sort of fertilizers.” Yost explains that mulches should break down quickly and add nutrients back to the soils. However, she has some clients who want mulches that stay on the soil surface for long periods of time and don’t need frequent re-application. “I always tell people, if it disappears, that’s a good thing!” explained Yost. “It didn’t go away with the wind, it worked its way into that hard-pan clay soil. It’s helping to amend it.” She is also not a fan of rubber mulches. Yost said, “They are not going to do anything good for your soil in my opinion. They do stay around for a long time, so there is that… Some people will use it under playgrounds, and I don’t even love it there as I don’t really want my kids playing on a bunch of ground-up tires. But there are poured rub- berized surfaces that can be nice under playgrounds that stay put and don’t move around. Another choice.” If you are going to do gravel mulches for a more long-term mulching alternative in, say, a herb or rock garden area, Yost recommended a weed barrier underneath it, but even that will not permanently block out weeds. “After a couple years, there will be dust, soil, bird poop, and weed seeds that get into it and accumulate. I’ve seen those white marble chips that people use around foundation plantings. Well, that looks great now and maybe next year, but don’t think that that’s not going to need pulling up and weeding in a year,” explained Yost. Finally, Yost suggested that homeowners think about how they have their mulching materials delivered, and to go with bulk deliveries if at all possible. “ I think bags are probably the easiest for the average
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