Mulching serves many different purposes regardless of what you’re planning to do with a garden bed. I’d wager an early retirement on the fact that most gardeners view mulching solely as an outlet to better express the look and aesthetic of their garden. The truth is your choice of mulch can impact the length of your growing season, your watering habits, the effectiveness of different fertilizers, and so much more!
So, what is the best type of mulch for your garden bed? The answer – as always – is a bit complicated. First, we need to identify what counts as this catch-all term, “mulch”. The natural world can help clear up our definition as forests all over the world have been mulching the forest floor by itself. Dried leaves, broken tree limbs, grasses etc. reintroduce vital nutrients to the soil once they fall. Ancient civilizations used the natural mulching process found in their environment as inspiration when mulching their own farms, especially in dryer regions that needed to trap moisture in the ground as long as possible. That brings us to the first and historically the most important use for mulch: moisture regulation.
Keeping a barrier between the beating sun and open soil helps stave off the evaporation of water from your garden bed. A compact layer can alter your watering schedule, saving you money and keeping your plants from developing root rot (saving you money twice!).
Moisture regulation is true of pretty much anything you use – from dried out leaves to the most expensive mulches on the market. The same goes for preventing new weeds from sprouting. So, what makes different mulches… different?
The key distinctions beyond that are mostly things the mulches bring in, not what they regulate out. Wood chips, Hay, compost, pine-bark, and a few other variants all provide your bed with organic materials. This is necessary for developing the bacteria and fungi imbedded in the soil that your plants use to look their best. Compost, hay, and pine-bark are especially great for this purpose and are the mulches I’d recommend for gardeners concerned about their soil health or composition. Wood chips are known to absorb nitrogen from your garden (most significant in recently sourced bags of mulch), but aged woodchips combat this issue. Woodchips are something I’d recommend if you’re garden bed is in a particularly windy area, as the pieces are heavier and less likely to be carried off.
The chemical dyes used in mulches nowadays have gotten a bad reputation, and that is not without justification. While most growers today actively reject using chemicals that could be harmful to the ecosystem, they still haven’t quite figured out how to stop their products from bleaching after extended periods of time. I prefer natural cypress in this case with little or no artificial coloring. It serves the same purpose and doesn’t need replaces nearly as often.
If you’re already prepping your garden with fertilizers and compost, don’t be afraid to use pine straw bales! They are far and away the least expensive option on this list, and can provide so much coverage, though they are lacking in nutrients that garden beds feed off of.
To ease your concerns, I WILL give you a definitive answer on the height of your mulch layers: usually 3-4 inches. A garden that is trapping too much moisture is usually due to too much mulch, and an exceedingly dry garden bed usually requires a bit more. Workshop these tips into your decisions and adjust with the passing seasons. They will be a bit longer once you’ve mulched effectively!
