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Mulch and Mulching Installation in this Age must be environmentally very responsible! |
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Mulch and Mulching Installation in this Age must be environmentally very responsible!
Some of our competition state that they can provide mulch products & installation services for homeowners & contractors" so you do not have to do the hard work themselves. But they don't state any of the negative points of what that so called time and effort saving application method entails.
They continue with the suggestion: "Put your wheel barrows away and let us take all the "work" out of yard work and mulching. They neglect to state, how detrimental the force of blowing wood fiber in and around plants and flower is. We have attended several trade shows and demonstrations on actual customers and have come to the conclusion that mulching with blowers is environmentally not a very responsible action.
Blowing mulch creates also excessive amounts of dust. Therefore customers, their neighbors, home owners up and down the road who are allergic to dust will not have a good day or two when a company blows, rather than wheelbarrows in the mulch. So maybe one can spend more time doing what you want to do, as they say. But such as replacing plants and flowers that got damaged by the forced air delivery, nursing your dust allergies are not very constructive.
Until some mechanical device can be developed that easily and mechanically can deliver mulch closer to the area where it is needed, we have to continue to use the wheelbarrow. A Pennsylvania company who presently builds very efficient small topdressing equipment www.earthandturf.com has a small mulcher under study.
Our competition goes on to say that mulch and soil products give you a beautiful weed free yard that our neighbors will all be talking about and we agree.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 May 2007 )
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Well, if you really want the truth, you’d have to thank Mother Nature, as mulching has long been going on in the forests and woodlands of the world, as a natural process, since time began. However, if you are looking for a person to credit as the first person to use mulching, then that’s a little more difficult. It really began with the Clean Air Act of 1970. This Federal Act instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set out rules and regulations, and enforce them, in an effort to reduce air pollution. Air pollution was coming from a number of sources, including sawmills. All of the excess bark and wood chips that were stripped off in sawmills were treated as waste material. This waste was burnt, and the burning produced carbon dioxide.
It is now a well-known fact that carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to the Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming. Following the legislation, sawmills were forbidden to dispose of their waste material in this way. So, they had to find another way of disposing of their unwanted wood and bark chippings. It was the National Forest Service who came up with the solution. They had performed extensive research, and discovered that the chippings created a good growing environment, when spread over the ground, for the plants in the forest.
What Does Mulching Do?
Mulching is literally the process of covering soil with a protective cover. This can be made from a number of different types of organic materials, particularly wood chippings. More recently synthetic covers have been developed. Gardeners, and agriculturists, discovered that mulching could help adjust the temperature of the soil throughout the seasons. During the warmer months it would help keep the soil cool, and it would help the soil retain what heat it has during the colder months, and prevent, or delay, the soil freezing. This would create a far more even temperature in the soil throughout the seasons.
Mulching also helps the soil to retain more water as it reduces the amount lost through evaporation. This could also help with erosion control, as the water seeps through gradually, and does not wash away the mulch material as easily as it does the soil underneath. As the mulch material breaks down over time it adds extra nutrients to the soil, providing a far more suitable soil for growing plants and flowers. As well as this, it reflects the sunlight upwards which benefits the plants that are growing. Any fruits and vegetables that are ground lying, from these plants, also have a cleaner and drier surface to rest on. This prevents them from rotting before they reach full maturity and are harvested.
However, by far the main reason that gardener’s today are mulching is because it prevents weeds from growing. During the 80’s, gardening became far more popular, but people didn’t have the time to spend weeding their flower beds. Spreading a layer of mulch around the plants meant that it reduced the amount of weeding that needed doing dramatically. It also gained popularity for its aesthetic properties. People thought it made their garden look better. This led to the development of colored mulch material, which could match a garden’s theme. The range of organic material that was used for mulching also grew to include differently scented products, not simply bark chippings. For example, pine needles, and even crushed cocoa shells add a new fragrance to gardens. Sheets of organic mulch are also available now. These are specifically designed to be used to cover soil used for growing crops. It is completely biodegradable.
What about synthetic mulch?
There are a number of different types of synthetic mulch available. However, these are not biodegradable, and do not add any nutrients to the soil underneath. They are primarily used for growing crops under. The most common types are either rubber or plastic sheeting. The idea is that holes are cut in the sheeting for the plants to grow through, reducing the amount of weeds that appear. Another material that can be used as mulch is rock, gravel and slate. This is an extension of people wanting the mulching process to enhance their garden, as well as keep the weeds at bay. This type of mulch is best suited to colder climates, as the rocks retain heat. Again, the rocks can be bought in different colors, particularly slate. It is available in gray, plum, black and other colors to compliment the rest of the garden.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 12 May 2007 )
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