Mulch love: snapping my mulch delivery with my cell phone.

We’re almost at the end of April and that means one thing to a lot of gardeners and most landscaping suppliers in Southern Ontario–mulching time. If you’re already hooked on mulch, you know first hand the benefits of this spring rite. Let me count the ways we love mulch:

1. Weeds are kept at bay.
2. Mulch protects your beds from baking in the summer.
3. It lessens the chance of erosion
4. Your soil stays moister longer so you don’t have to water as much.
5. Mulch finishes off your garden beds nicely.

Mulch is a terrific multi-tasker. As I’ve mentioned in my post on growing a gorgeous garden faster, you can use mulch to make a path and transform a part of your garden that resists any kind of plant growth. But if you haven’t picked up the phone to order your delivery yet, let me offer these additional reasons to get some mulch:

1. You haven’t got time. Say you’ve just moved into a new home and you’re already sick of looking at all that bare earth. But you just don’t have the time (or the budget) to plant up that bed/lawn/whatever this season. Cover it in mulch. Instant minimalist garden not to mention, come summer rainstorms, you’ll avoid mud slides, mud puddles and mud splashed on your shiny new home.
2. In the battle between your lawn and your flower beds, the lawn is winning. Put a wide margin of mulch between the edge of your lawn and your beautiful annuals and perennials and you’ll never lose another shrub or flower to the wrath of the Whipper Snipper.
3. You want to produce whiplash from passing neighbours. When a jeweller wants to sell a diamond necklace, does she place it on a sheet of grey paper? Uh, no. If she’s smart she’ll trust in contrast to add the wow factor. Think black velvet. Sold! You can do the same in your garden. Try red mulch under a grouping of blue pines. Or set off a grouping of eye-searing flowers with rich black mulch.

For a good review of all things mulch, check out Mad About Mulch from northscaping.com. This website serves gardeners and home landscapers living in northern North America with hardiness zones from 1 to 5. Even though most of Southern Ontario is zone 6, the information is still valid and very useful, particularly given the fact that we just went through a winter of record temp lows.