Spring is coming, and your mulch needs a touch up!
Who loves the smell of mulch?
If you love the smell of mulch you must be a spring person! The fresh aroma of mulch can be disgusting but quite nice at the same time. The smell of mulch is the symbol that spring is finally here after a long winter hibernation. Landscape companies and your neighbors are going to start buzzing around Home Depot, Lowe’s or a local garden center to spruce up landscape mulch. Mulch is not just used for a aesthetic look, although a new dark mulch blanket looks stunning against vibrant plant colors. Mulch has plenty of benefit to your landscape.
A long time favorite that mulch has to your landscape is that it keeps those pesky weeds out of the garden bed. The mulch chokes them out with a thick layer and also kills the weeds because there is no light source for the weeds to keep surviving. Another great benefit of mulch is that it retains the moisture to your landscape bed. That means you don’t have to add as much water to your plants in comparison to only having plain dirt or a rock/gravel bed. Less work – score! Curious for more reasons why mulch is a great addition to your property? The soil temperature!
Mulch controls your soils temperature by acting as a insulator. Not only does it work great in the winter, it also works great in the hot summer heat. Mulch does a great job of keeping the soil temperatures lower for a long period of time in the summer months. In the winter it controls the temperate in the cold by retaining the heat. Mulch is also excellent at preventing soil erosion.
When the rain starts to pour, if it hits the soil directly it may wash away a significant amount. That is no good. Soil is heavy and expensive to add more. Mulch will prevent any soil from washing away by acting as a barrier from the rain water. Although mulch has incredible benefits to your landscape, there are different types of material to use as a mulch. What is your favorite type of mulch? Let us know in the comments below!
-Melanie E.
