by Taylor’s Way | Dec 10, 2018 | Blog

Late summer and early fall are the best seasons to enjoy a hard year’s work and fully take advantage of your landscape. Besides spending long days and nights outdoors in a clean and healthy environment, you can also get some peace of mind surrounded by sparkling green vegetation and hypnotizing flower scents. But your own slice of Heaven needs as much protection as you can give it – summer also comes with various problems and draught is only the smallest of them. Extreme temperatures, pests, heat-loving diseases and weeds, wildlife and fertilization problems – these are all factors you need to consider during the summer season.

Today, our lawn care Princeton IL specialists want to offer you a simple solution to many of these problems – mulch. Let’s see the main mulching principles and how you can easily employ them on your property.

Types of Mulch and Their Roles

Mulch can be organic and synthetic. Both types have their roles and purposes on a property and you can use them both depending on your needs.

Organic Mulch

• Moist mulch – this type of bio material can be made of grass clippings, chopped leaves and twigs, straws, newspaper shreds, compost, manure and so on. It is a mulch type that decomposes fast, acting as a natural fertilizer. It keeps the soil humid, cool and well fed as it gets absorbed into it. This is the most preferred type of mulch by seasoned gardeners and landscapists as it also acts like a plant defender against weeds and pests.
• Dry mulch – also organic, this mulch is harder as it contains more shredded bark and chopped wooden material. While it doesn’t decompose fast, thus not being used as a fertilizer, it can also keep the soil cool and the roots protected. Being harder, it acts as a physical barrier between your plants and sprouting weeds, having a decorative purpose as well.

Synthetic (Inorganic) Mulch

This material is usually made of landscape fabric or plastic, but you can find it also as a gravel/stone ground cover. It doesn’t decompose at all and it is used as a barrier against weeds, pests and disease. Its aesthetic role makes it desirable for landscaping purposes.

Mulch Installations

Ask your lawn care Draper, UT specialists to install mulch on your property. You can do it by yourself if you follow the 3-3-3 rule:

• Place a 3-inch thick layer of mulch around each tree, shrub, and bush or in flower beds.
• Spread the 3-inch thick layer of mulch on a 3-feet radius (create a circle area) around each tree or shrub. Try to get a perfect circle, as you need to cover as much root system as you can, especially in trees.
• Keep a 3-inch distance between the mulch layer and the trees’, shrubs’ or flowers’ trunks and barks – if you pile up the mulch against the bark like a volcano cone you will permit the development of bark diseases which can kill the tree or any other plant.

Ask your lawn care Princeton IL specialists to help you pick the best type of mulch according to your needs and help you with its installation and maintenance.