Cait's Garden

Mulch has become a thorn in my side. Or should I say a sliver in my finger. Despite my desire to fill up my garden with growing things, bare spots persist that seem naked and vulnerable without a neat coating of chopped cypress. This is especially true of the long swaths of shrubbery that circle my house. You cannot crowd growing things, especially shrubbery. If a shrub will get 3 feet wide, then by golly, I’m going to give it 3 feet to grow. Cue the mulch! Ground cover can certainly work at times. Sedum is an especially pleasant and well-behaved ground cover. But I’d need about a truckload of sedum to cover the bare spots in my landscape. A more vigorously spreading ground cover could do the job, but I’ve heard horror stories of creeping leaves that swallow up everything in their path and that you can never rid your yard of again. No thanks.

So, we all run out and buy bag after bag of mulch. Every single year, because mulch has a way of disappearing. I’ve found cypress mulch has the best longevity. I also like the look of it around my shrubs. But it’s expensive and I need a lot of it. A couple of years ago I had 3 yards delivered by truck. It seemed easier than trying to wrangle all those little bags. And it was, but the mulch has dissipated and it’s already time to reorder.

Around my flower garden (all flowers, no shrubs), I’ve occasionally used a smaller, finer mulch, like Scotts Naturescapes. They make a nice dark brown color that goes well with the flowers. But that mulch never lasts past a year. And really, shouldn’t I be able to grow flowers close enough together to avoid the mulch? I’ve planned it that way, but flowers keep getting in the way of my plans by suddenly coming back in the Spring half their size, opening up that dreaded patch of bare dirt. But I am making a stand this year to at least avoid mulch in my perennial beds. Which means I’ll be reaching for alot of “fillers,” both annual (can’t beat alyssum) and perennial (the aforementioned sedum).