I mulch. More to keep my soil cooler and help retain moisture and keep weeds down.
Cher

First and foremost... I'm a big fan of mini pine nuggets or fine pine nuggets...

Mulch is a broad term... each individual type of mulch has its own benefits and drawbacks...

I tried shredded hardwood mulches for a few years.. and found they really mat up and rot in our kentucky summers... they hold moisture at the surface and contributed to southern blight here in my garden... Though shredded mulch added to clay soil... really did help me develop a more loamy humus filled garden...

The pine nuggets tend to stick around a bit longer, they have a more natural look, they have a great smell, they allow the soil surface to dry out, and when added to the soil they do not immediately compost and really help with drainage...

Secondly I have found that in areas where I have thick groundcover... mostly my sunnier beds with my lillies,daylillies, sedum, dianthus... the ajuga, vinca vine and ivy really make it kinda pointless to spread mulch... I have tried my best to exterminate all ground cover from around my hostas.. planting only mounding companion plants for a variation....

When you chose not to mulch and have bareground near your hostas.. you get that mudsplashed look after a heavy rain or watering... but generally when you water... you are wanting your soil to drain and to dry back out quickly.. so as far as mulch goes... it tends to prevent this a little... I mulch because i prefer the look of mulch to bareground...and I mulch to somewhat help amend the soil..'
John

Yeah and I agree with Cher... it does help with weeds and keeps the temperature of the soil balanced
John

Please, please read my 'Warning' thread prior to ordering any mulch.

I always use natural mulch,not anything dyed. Mini pine bark nuggets work well,and I use cypress mulch sometimes,whatever is cheaper,especially when you have to cover a lot of area. I hate the look of mud-splashed hosta leaves! Phil

I use shredded mulch, though I have been transitioning from shredded mulch all over to just using for new plantings and along garden edges. Cost and time were becoming too much as gardens grew. My gardens are mostly a wooded look...so I have gone to shredded oak leaves for areas past the garden edges. By fall most are gone and ready for the newest batch.

Paul

I did use shredded leaves and grass clipping with no chemicals on my first bed last year and save all our shredded leaves from our large maple trees (Myrle gets half of them) She had beautiful whole oak leaves for a top dressing but a bit harder to come by . I may try to bag some maple leaves without shredding just for a top dressing as the fall colors are so nice.I do use them on my other flowers but they have no hosta .Will have to do something as the heat is going to be in the high 30 and up to 40 C this weekend

Almosthooked, I'm surprised to hear you use grass clippings as a mulch. Or maybe I am reading it wrong and you are using a blend of grass and leaves ? It is hot outside and my brain is melting along with my plants.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but from what I have read glass clippings can sometimes be "hot" if not left to dry out long enough when used as a mulch. I also read they can pull Nitrogen out of the soil since your microfarm will now be using more of the Nitrogen to fuel the break down of the organic matter. Because it can potentially be "hot" you want to make sure to keep it away from the crown of your younger plants for fear of burn. Of course for the life of me I cannot find the link to the article. I think it was on the University of Minnesota's .edu site.

Is this another one of those garden myths, or should I just start aiming the mower at my perennial beds ?

Either way, three cheers for mulch !!!! I'm tempted to bury myself in it to escape this miserable heat.

Hope everyone is staying cool,
Ludi

I did mix them last season and no one died in my hosta bed but I never used too much and left them away from the base of each hosta. Maybe should just compost the grass clippings instead and use the leaves.It won't be long before the grass quits growing this fast now that out weather is got hot. We are on well water so the lawns are the last to get the water once the water table goes down.

Never had a problem with grass clippings on anything myself... They dry out really quick... I think it kindly depends on how tall the grass is! Here in the hayfields... If you bail wet hay... And then fill a barn up with wet haybails... Believe it or not... The mess will get so hot.. temperature wise... That it will catch fire and burn all of your hay up and your barn down....
That's why its cut, tettered, raked and then bailed.... There's a chemical you can spray it with to keep it from heating up... But most of us old fashioned farmers just make sure not to bail it wet... But you're looking at 2ft tall grass atleast..... I wouldn't think 2 or 3 inches off the top of your lawn would ever produce enough heat to cause any problems...
John

Never had a problem with grass clippings on anything myself... They dry out really quick... I think it kindly depends on how tall the grass is! Here in the hayfields... If you bail wet hay... And then fill a barn up with wet haybails... Believe it or not... The mess will get so hot.. temperature wise... That it will catch fire and burn all of your hay up and your barn down....
That's why its cut, tettered, raked and then bailed.... There's a chemical you can spray it with to keep it from heating up... But most of us old fashioned farmers just make sure not to bail it wet... But you're looking at 2ft tall grass atleast..... I wouldn't think 2 or 3 inches off the top of your lawn would ever produce enough heat to cause any problems...
John

Never had a problem with grass clippings on anything myself... They dry out really quick... I think it kindly depends on how tall the grass is! Here in the hayfields... If you bail wet hay... And then fill a barn up with wet haybails... Believe it or not... The mess will get so hot.. temperature wise... That it will catch fire and burn all of your hay up and your barn down....
That's why its cut, tettered, raked and then bailed.... There's a chemical you can spray it with to keep it from heating up... But most of us old fashioned farmers just make sure not to bail it wet... But you're looking at 2ft tall grass atleast..... I wouldn't think 2 or 3 inches off the top of your lawn would ever produce enough heat to cause any problems...
John

Stupid phone

I think you should not put mulch close to the crown. Mulch should not consist of large pieces because slugs will hide under. The thickness of the mulch layer should not be more than 1 to 2 inches because that would mask any activity of rodents, or rodents would run right under the mulch.
I use bagged shredded wood or bark from Scott's or others whatever is the least costliest. I also have three compost bins 3ft x 3ft x 3ft filled with shredded leaves and use that as amendment when planting (1 bucket per planting hole), and use that also as mulch. I also use shredded (by lawn mower) leaves directly as mulch in Fall.
Bernd

I think you should not put mulch close to the crown. Mulch should not consist of large pieces because slugs will hide under. The thickness of the mulch layer should not be more than 1 to 2 inches because that would mask any activity of rodents, or rodents would run right under the mulch.
I use bagged shredded wood or bark from Scott's or others whatever is the least costliest. I also have three compost bins 3ft x 3ft x 3ft filled with shredded leaves and use that as amendment when planting (1 bucket per planting hole), and use that also as mulch. I also use shredded (by lawn mower) leaves directly as mulch in Fall.
Bernd

The pine straw my son put down a couple of years ago was the absolute BEST. I can't find it here in Illinois for some reason. He had a landscape business in Cincinnati and it was common there - so he hauled a trailer load up here and placed it in every square inch of my gardens - around 350 hosta. At first I didn't care for it - it was high (about a foot!) but very fluffy and airy and eventually went down with a few rains. I didn't have ONE slug or bug that year. It's kind of 'curly' - beautiful. The color was great and it was very airy so it allowed for a perfect climate for all of the plants. It took a couple of years to disappear.

Westy

I don't have anywhere near the number of hostas the rest of you have. The ones I do have, are pretty big. I stopped putting mulch on a couple years ago. I still have slugs, but not like I had when I mulched. Because the hostas are big, I don't have a lot of weeds and its much less work without the mulch. I do like the look of the mulch, but not enough to put up with the slug damage.

If I didn't already have mulch, I wouldn't use it.
My hostas are getting big, there's very little "ground" showing anymore and the overall effect that I liked from the mulch (creating a nice backdrop for the hostas) is less evident.

That said, I have been using shredded cypress here in MN.

A word on lawn clippings. I think if you go that route, don't you have to let them compost first? Aren't they too "hot" otherwise? I've heard of many a gardener using fresh clippings and losing everything.

When I lived in Arkansas, where moisture retention in the soil was critical, I had a friend that had beautiful border gardens. I'd asked Hugo what he did to have such beautiful plants-and fantastic tomatoes. He said all he did was use all of his grass clippings as mulch. He bagged when he cut and just dumped the clippings wet on his gardens. The grass clippings I saw had to be 4-5 inches thick. Did he use any special fertilizing? No-just grass clippings. I was impressed.

Up here in IL I use shredded undyed wood chips if any. All of the grass I put in my compost bins. My goal is to have no grass to mow and more room for hostas.

But in a direct answer to the question "Mulch or not?" I would say do it if you feel it helps. Two of my hosta beds have NEVER been mulched and are doing wonderfully. In my unmulched beds it is easy to control weeds with a shuffle hoe. In a mulched bed I need to pull. But not many. Hostas are the best weed control I have! But those d----- Mulberry seedling will grow everywhere-mulch or not.

Yes, I have no problem with slugs in unmulched beds but it seems more cutworm damage. ? Also, it seems those d----- voles don't visit my wood chip mulched beds like they do open ground. ? I haven't tried it yet but I think next year I will spray a diluted Castor Oil over my yard and see if it deters voles.

Les

@westy pinestraw.com. pinestraw delivered to your door
John

They may not deliver 200 miles north of the US border into Canada and if they did , I may have to sell the farm.Pine has the pine beetle kill so really may not be something I would want to introduce to my yard as the only pine I had died .It sounds like everyone has a different idea and it is just like adding compost I bought. The company said to use conservatively and no more then2 inches. I would think that could be the key.Thanks for all the input

nah I was telling westy where she could get her pinestraw... I wasn't recommending it to ya...
John

Thanks John! I never knew where to get it and for some reason, never even thought to Google - which has become my complete education source. I don't know what kind of pine it is - there are so many - but it was the absolute BEST 'mulch' ever. And our son moved to Colorado and is no longer in the business of landscaping. My hostas are mostly growing on berms that were planted with Scotch pine when the subdivision was new. Little did we know they have a 25-year lifespan so they're all dying, which means no more dappled shade when they come down. I'm actually glad to see them go - the small pinecones became 'mulch' and are a pain in my side and other places.

Thanks for that tip - I appreciate it.

Westy

It's been awhile since I looked over purchasing options from pinestraw.com.. but years ago they had standard and longleaf... And rough grade and landscapers grade... Of course the longleaf landscapers grade was the more expensive...I would assume it would last the longest and have less random junk in it....
John

A few years ago we bought mulch for a new hosta bed. I then discovered I couldn't "clean out" the beds when the trees let down their leaves and ACORNS. I decided the mulch was a huge waste of money. I now add leaves each year and things have been fine until this spring. For some unknown reason for the fist time EVER all the acorns are sprouting. I have spent the entire summer pulling small oak trees from all my beds. The squirrels were not hungry, the winter too mild, just the right amount of moisture..I don't know why but I HATE IT! The mulch did nothing to discourage this and maybe even helped. I use grass clippings on top of news paper in my vegi garden. Works very slick. Most of my hosta beds, and they are numerous and prolific have "living mulch" in them. I really am not a fan of the look of mulch and at my house it did increase slug issues.

I just cleaned out my big (6 x 6 x 3'deep) compost pile after about 7 yrs and spread some 40 wheelbarrow loads on all the beds until I ran out. That's the best stuff, and I use the compost from my two smaller bins on a regular basis. But that is more of a top dressing than a mulch.

Otherwise I use the free composted leaf mulch from the city or wood chips when they have their free give-a-way (can't tell them from the cypress mulch so I'm not buying that anymore). The city turns their piles on a regular basis so there is little chance of a toxic build-up of gasses. I also now have access to well composted cow manure free for the hauling, from a cattle raising friend. I have to remind DH to go fetch me some of that! More top dressing!

In the fall, we shred leaves and top everything with them.

My favorite mulch however, other than my own compost, is composted cotton burr.

Grass clippings go into the compost, the nitrogen helps heat it up and it decomposes more rapidly. One word of caution about grass clippings: if you use weedkillers on your lawn, don't use them fresh around your plants.

Sandy

Grass clippings don't pull nitrogen from the soil; they contain nitrogen, which is the primary reason I've put them in my beds before. I didn't put them where plants are close together, and didn't put them close to crowns. They break down fairly quickly. I definitely wouldn't put grass clippings in the garden that have weeds that have gone to seed in them. Nothing like "planting" weeds in your garden! Not!

Deanna

I didn't mean that they pull nitrogen, I meant that they contan it and it is almost the same as putting nitrogen fertilizer in your compost. It generates heat which helps your compost break down.

I also didn't mean that grass clippings that contain weed seeds should not go on your plants,(which of course, they shouldn't),I meant that fresh grass clippings from lawns that have been treated with broad-leaf weed killers might still contain herbicides that have not broken down and could damage your plants. They should be thoroughly composted first.

Sandy

I've gotten pine straw from pinestraw.com. I loved it! Yes, nice smelling, light, airy and works great. I wish I could get pine straw naturally here but there's nowhere I can close by. It was too expensive for me to do all my mulching with every year, but I did love it :)
Now, I just use shredded oak, maple leaves in fall that I use my leaf blower/sucker for shredding. Every spring I use pine fines or a fine pine mulch to make everything look nice for the growing season.
But yes, every fall I use something that can decompose and feed the soil with, hence the shredded leaves. Works great, plentiful here, and free!