After hearing Kim and Jeri's comments about using oak leaf litter, we have been hauling the leaves up by the wheel barrow load. I think the roses are enjoying the leaves, I know the towhees are and with all the rustling, I can hear where they are busy.

We use grass clippings and pine needles. Keeps the moisture down and the weeds out. I've heard some people say that decomposing fresh grass robs the soil of nutrients. Does anyone have advice about that? Should I be adding anything to compensate? My roses seem pretty happy.

No mulch - any space is a space to be planted in.

I used to use oak leaves,and all of my plants loved it, including the roses. The only problem I had was a bunch of oak seedlings that kept coming up in the beds from acorns that were mixed in with the leaves, but they were easy to pull. These were leaves.that had been raked up and put in black garbage bags by the side of the road for trash pickup. I couldn't believe people would throw away such a fabulous free resource.

My husband as usual thought I was insane going around picking up other people's trash. I just looked for yards with huge oaks and when the bags appeared, snatched them up. This was when I was working, and I did it on the way home from work the day before trash day. It's no longer convenient since I retired.

I get the most amazing leaf mold (or is it mould?) from my gutters when I clean them, complete with earthworms. I've always wondered how the worms get up there.

Yes to oak leaves and grass clippings. I think the shredded mulch is a scam by the lumber industry. It is profit on their waste. They have sold the public on its as a necessity. It always looks so neat and tidy when it is freshly laid, so it must be the right thing to do.

ratdogheads--

Grass clippings are rich in nutrients, potassium if they haven't been leached by rain after cutting, and lots of nitrogen if the grass had been fertilized. No mulch robs nutrients from the soil except at the very surface, which is no problem. Mixing raw organic matter INTO the soil can cause nitrogen deficiency for a few months or a year. This includes rotted leaves if the compost isn't "finished" (which can take two years if you just pile them up and leave them to rot).

I have been mulching with leaves for a few years and find it satisfactory.

I like the way Camp thinks! Mulch? When I could plant something there instead? You must be kidding!

I do use leaves for winter protection and in the spring there's always a great layer of decaying stuff at the bottom full of worms that I leave on the beds to feed the soil. Some times, if I'm really good, I'l try to turn it into the soil. But for the most part I just leave it on the top and let the worms do the work.

Be very careful, and have much better cats than I do. Leaf mulch can lead to real problems with voles. I absolutely cannot put it down in the fall, and even in the spring I've had some problems. The leaf mulch is apparently much more to their liking than shredded pine.

A couple of times a year I drive through the neighborhood on trash day and pick up bags of leaves and grass clippings, and that's what I mulch with. No more bought mulch for me. It makes wonderful leaf mold. Mother Nature has been using this mulch for how many eons of time? If it's good enough for Her, it's good enough for me.

I agree that empty spaces need plants in them, but what about the empty space right under and around roses? Can't plant anything right up under them, too much root competition, so that's where my mulch goes.

I am in Camp's camp: too many species of plants, not enough space or time in this world. The roses I grow either deal with it (or slyly kill off the competition by growing over it over time) or they are out of here. I tried using traditional mulches here-and-there to see how they worked in this garden and they just didn't work well with my style of gardening -- I kept having to remove them to plant something else.

Compost, now, is another story.

In Florida, you would have to plant something every half inch to not have weeds spring up in between. Of course, I'm speaking rural Florida, where blown-in weed seeds are a much bigger problem than they would be in a subdivision.

In my garden bare spaces equals tough as iron weeds, and I've always mulched with leaves from the trees I have, of whatever kind (one I know is African). The problem is I don't have enough of them. Of course I use the spent rose blooms, cut up rose branches and prunings from trees, but a few weeks ago I actually bought some mulch because I needed a thick layer due to a winter with very little rain. It's too soon to say how well it will work, but for me leaves are very desirable for mulch.

Ingrid

Pine needles/pine straw

Thread link:

Here is a link that might be useful: Will some roses develop resistance to black spot if not spray

"whatever mulch material I use" thread link

Here is a link that might be useful: You can have TOO much mulch!!

floridarose, subdivisions are full of weeds too. There are always a few homes that don't take care of their yard and let the weed seeds fly all over. We missed to trips of lawn care for our backyard (because of rain, they twice came on days we didn't know they were coming and the gate was locked). Our backyard is full of weeds! Even after mowing them down, they have popped right back up.

If I don't mulch, my 'soil' is hard as a rock and full of weeds. So I use mulch. I am trying to underplant so I'll need less mulch. But any bare spot is mulched.

a hoe is ideal for little blown in seedlings...and it also aerates the surface and even creates a 'dust'mulch - I have a daisy grubber and an onion hoe welded to my wrists for the entire duration of the summer (fortunately, not that long in the UK).

It always comes down to the same thing - location. When it hasn't rained for six months I could kiss my garden good-bye, even with daily watering in the summer, if I didn't have mulch. I noticed that even with mulch that wasn't thick enough the ground underneath was completely dry when I checked it before watering after the usual day off when I didn't water. I know that seems difficult to believe when you haven't experienced it, but the low humidity and intense radiation from the sun at this higher elevation, in addition to lots of concrete and other hardscape, make this a daunting place to garden. I don't even know if I can call it gardening in camp's meaning of the word; it's really more of a grim struggle to maintain and hang on to what you have rather than growing on interesting things from seed that look charming but which here probably won't have a chance of making it even through the first few weeks of summer.

At the same time, perhaps just because it is more difficult, making a garden here that gives pleasure is such a satisfying endeavor. I know that many of you garden in areas with huge challenges and know what I'm talking about.

Ingrid

In my heat leaf mulch is a must. I think that's what keeps the roses alive in my horrible summer heat.

I pretty much never throw away leaf litter. it goes directly onto my rose beds. I even use dry oleander leaves as mulch. No problems that I know of.

In my climate there is leaf and tree litter drop year around so I have a constant supply of mulch.

"This is the first year I have not used mulch that I bought. Trying to save money, etc., so I used crushed leaves for mulch instead. "

Low-cost/no-cost mulching materials are widely available if you look around.

Hardwood leaves/yard litter from your yard or from your neighbors makes a good no-cost mulch. Avoid materials with obvious seeds and that have been treated with herbicides, however. If you also avoid including too much maple leaves, it's not necessary to shred the leaves. Leaving them as they fall works just fine.

Wood chips are an excellent mulch and are free for the taking at many public recycling centers. IMHO, they look better than leaves.

Evergreen needles also make a fine no-cost mulch if you can get them from a cultivated area - but don't remove them from a natural area..

Altorama

No, you are obviously not the only one. Look at all of us! I'm so glad you posted this question because it's comforting to know that I'm not the only one, too. My gardening practices are frequently uncoventional, but so far, the world hasn't stopped turning and most plants that I adore have survived. My "mulch" is usually just leaves--a la urban forest floor. I rake my leaves and my neighbors' leaves (see "Too Much Mulch" thread) and toss all the above on my beds each fall. My mom taught me this method. I used it in TX, with some home-made compost for extra top-dressing as needed. I used this method in MN, and my pansies overwintered beneath the layered blankets of brown foliage and white snow. The leaves at my current location are mostly flowering ash. After reading Strawberry Hill's postings, I've become curious about the pH of ash leaves. They've been free and handy, so I've been snagging them each year, but my roses seem to enjoy them. I'm nervous about admitting this aberrant behavior on a gardening forum, but, no, I don't really fertilize in Portland. I make compost. It takes some time because I don't turn it or feed it. I (sort of) layer materials in Rubbermaid cans with holes cut in them. Then I wait. Compost tea can be used on potted darlings or weaklings. I often make cheater tea by soaking some compost that's done cookin' in a bucket of water. Then I dump the lot of it under my plants. Does anyone else use this method? I grew up with iced tea, I adore pots of hot tea, and some culinary part of my brain must be crossing wires with the horticultural lobes.

Carol

This post was edited by PortlandMysteryRose on Mon, Jun 10, 13 at 18:03

Oh, Floridarosez. I have earthworms in my gutters too. Weird! Good compost up there on the edges of the rooftop. --Carol

This post was edited by PortlandMysteryRose on Tue, Jun 11, 13 at 2:17

Ha, speaking of fertilization, this is also the first year I haven't used Rose Tone. Whoever lived here before kept all the leaves in a huge pile, great compost at the bottom of it!

Sweet! :-)

Carol, I make manure tea--horse manure stirred up in a bucket and strained when ready. My ferns love it.

Have you figured out how the earthworms get up there?

Floridarosez, not a clue! Birds? Earthworm fairies?

This post was edited by PortlandMysteryRose on Tue, Jun 11, 13 at 2:13

Floridarose, weeds are a huge problem here in my suburban Houston yard. The seeds lie dormant in the soil, sometimes for years, and some sprout every year and even with constant weeding, they manage to leave more behind, so there's a never-ending parade of weeds every year. They're especially bad if I turn the soil, that brings them to the surface. But they're really bad whether I turn the soil or not.