The practice of mulching has been done by trees for thousands of years, and each year, trees drop leaves or needles to the forest floor, forming a layer of organic matter.
The resultant covering serves many functions, but first and foremost it provides cover to the soil, and it reduces or completely eliminates erosion. Among other benefits, the layer of leaves also helps to retain moisture, adds organic material to the root zone of the plant, and allows for recycling of nutrients.
Performing this act on your Dallas lawn serves the same purpose, and it also provides a number of other benefits. For example, as in the case of natural landscape, it helps to conserve and maintain soil moisture, which is a huge benefit for plants.
Items Needed for Spring Lawn Mulching
To perform this practice in the spring time, the materials will depend on a wide range of factors, such as it’s effect on the soil- including Ph, chemical actions, combustibility, rate of decomposition, and with that added availability and cost. Some of the materials used for lawn mulching are:
Organic Mulches
This particular material include the plant matter that decomposes quickly, such as bark chips, grass clippings, straw, leaves, compost, rice hulls, sawdust, grape pomace, shredded newspaper, cardboard, wool animal manure, etc.
This eventual degradation of organic mulches improves soil fertility and helps spring plants for better growth, and also, applying organic mulches to your spring maintenance is near to like recycling the discarded products of the house.
The organic mulches are also beneficial for nurturing useful bacterias, fungi, and worms, plus the soil organisms often naturally control harmful pests from attacking your plants and bounds nitrogen to the soil. A drawback to this is that you need to apply it every year as part of your spring lawn maintenance.
Inorganic Mulches
These items comprise of plastic sheeting, rocks, rubber chips, or non-woven geotextiles are examples of Inorganic mulches, and while they may seem inappropriate for lawn mulching, some are used for distinguishable purposes. For example now, plastic sheet, in mulching is used in large scale vegetable growing, where millions of acres are maintained through this process.
Shredded Wood Mulch
While this looks like an organic mulch, it is a special kind. Shredded wood mulch has unique mulching properties that make it very much potential for spring lawn mulching. These mulching material comes in different variations as well, and the list is as follows:
Bark Mulch
Bark Mulch is the most popular type of mulch and gives a fantastic outlook once laid down, and the shredded barks trap moisture better than the large chunks.
Cedar Mulch
Cedar Mulch is associated with quality, plus they do not cost too much which can be very beneficial if used for spring lawn maintenance. Shredded cedar mulch possess natural oil that repels the insects, so it is a useful pest repellent.
Colored Mulch
This one obtains this from shredded woods or wood chips dyed in a reddish color. A benefit of this dyed wood is that it gives an opulent appearance to your lawn, but is a bit expensive concerning the spectacle colored mulch offers.
Natural Colored Mulch
They are obtained from naturally colored wood and not added dye to the texture. You can find multiple faded colors and cheap at cost, and the benefits are quite similar to other wood mulches.
Pine Peelings
A good thing about this item is that it provides an aesthetic appeal and are by-products from pine wood millings. While this item is not as great as cedar or bark, but if you’re working on a tight budget and still to add some appealing flavor, this may be the right choice.
Lawn Mulching Tips and Benefits in Spring
While there are several benefits of mulching, you can name a few cons to the mulching process, but the benefits overpass the drawbacks.
Mulching is an easy, practical way to not only help insulate your plants, but provide nutrients for them and the microorganisms that live in the soil of your garden, cut-down on weed growth, maintain moisture, decrease soil erosion, and provide additional organic matter for your plants to eat. Mulching has been a common practice amongst gardeners for hundreds of years. In this day and age, as we find ourselves returning to more organic ways of gardening, the benefits of mulching have been “rediscovered” and many of us are making mulching part of our regular gardening practices again.
The organic matter mulch provides as it breaks down over time will offer added nutrients to your plants such as carbon and nitrogen. Anyone who knows anything about growing knows that carbon and nitrogen are key components to healthy, strong plants. By applying a layer of mulch to your garden, you can help provide these components-and there’s no work for you to do after applying the mulch-it will do its own work!
In addition to offering nutrition to your plants, mulch will offer food to all the tiny microorganisms, worms, and other burrowing plants that live in your soil. This is a good thing (keeping the masses happy and well-fed) because these organisms help breakdown wastes and help aerate and break-up your soil (by burrowing), which is important because soil needs air and healthy soil is loose.
A layer of mulch can also reduce weed growth. By covering your soil with mulch, it will allow less light to penetrate the soil where weeds can sprout up. All the “good stuff” is kept “under cover” and the plants are the only things exposed to the sun. Of course, weeds being weeds, you’ll still have some problems, but mulching will definitely help reduce the severity of the problem.
Mulch is also the best way to help maintain moisture. Often times, especially in the hot Summer months, water evaporates faster than your plants can drink it. You find yourself watering your garden much more often and much more thoroughly than you should have to. A layer of mulch will help maintain a somewhat steady temperature in your soil, allowing water to “stick around” longer and be used by your plants. It will also lengthen your growing season a bit because the ground won’t get cold as quickly in the Fall.
And another major benefit of mulching is that it will help cut down on soil erosion. There’s nothing worse than losing a couple inches of top soil to a heavy rain fall! Mulch, whether it be wood chips, pine needles, hay/straw, or compost will help aid in you keeping your top soil!
We all know that spring is a magical month as well as the perfect time to decorate your house as your sweet will, plus your lawn is an inalienable part of your home and provides the first impression for panegyrizes.
So, I suggest you do something to make it look well taken care of. If you need professional help for your next project, feel free to contact us for a free quote or call us at 214-543-2042
