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Hello my name is Karen and I love mulch. Any kind of mulch will do--the cheap cypress stuff sold for 3/$10, the beautiful pine bark nuggets that look so amazing in my woodland garden, or the smorgasbord of leaves that fall each year from our maple, sassafras and walnut trees (as well as our neighbor's 2 massive oaks). I have even employed the tree-trimming guy down the street to dump a few loads of whatever he had on his truck in our driveway! O friends, one can never be too well-endowed with mulch.

My mulching habit started innocently enough--I genuinely needed a substance to cover the bare ground of my newly established gardens. I had heard about the benefits of mulching ; weeds are kept to a minimum, water is conserved in the soil, a beautiful landscape is achieved, etc. I was instantly drawn into this weird and wacky world of endless hours of stooping and shoveling, sprinkling and sifting. The gardens were looking wonderful; I had finally found my destiny.

Soon, however, I began to over-do. Not by much, mind you, and not so it was easily noticeable, unless you are a trained professional. Before long, my mulch levels began to grow at an alarming rate; I started spending more and more time thinking about mulch, looking for sales on mulch, and finally, to my shame, dreaming about the day my trees dropped their leaves so I could shred them into mulch!

My gardening friends tried to warn me about the dangers of over-mulching. I knew that slugs and snails, pill bugs and cutworms live in deep mulch and were decimating my hostas. The robins didn't have to dig far to find myriads of earthworms, and in the process, fling even more mulch over the crowns of my innocent green friends. My daylilies started yellowing and shriveling, trying to choke out one last burst of blooms before they met their violent and untimely end. I saw all this happening before my eyes, but did I stop? No! My depravity knew no bounds, and I piled on yet another layer of shredded leaves.

Then one day, as though compelled by some mysterious garden force, I began to see the hideous atrocities I had committed against those who had entrusted their very lives to my care--and I was profoundly changed. Joyfully and with wild abandon, I raced through my garden beds, raking and scraping, tossing that once-coveted stuff into wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, and carting it to a new frontier where no mulch had previously trod. As I stood back and surveyed my work, I choked back tears of relief that my days of over-mulching were behind me.

My experience has not been without pain or sacrifice. Many plants have been lost along the way, as I refused to accept the possibility that my heavy handedness could have contributed to their demise. Sadly, their plant labels still rest peacefully in my garden box as a memorial to their former existence. My health was not unaffected, as I was forced to visit the chiropractor--a result of some especially vigorous and improperly executed mulch-shoveling. I am grateful that my husband stayed by my side throughout those dark days.

Today, though not totally mulch-free, I have a healthy perspective on my relationship with mulch. I know now that I can use just enough to gain the benefits without the temptation to over-do. If sharing my tragic story helps just one other gardener avoid the pitfalls of deceptive over-mulching, it was worth the agony I relived in its telling. Thank you.

Disclaimer: For anyone who has truly suffered a debilitating addiction, my hope is that this story will not hurt you in any way. This post was not meant to offend or make light of a real struggle in someone's life, just my weird sense of humor and love of writing.

Karen glad you fixed it yourself before you had to find a mulch group. ;-) :-)

You are just to cute! Hahahaa That is so true & you should be employed as a writer for some garden magazine!!! Thanks for the smile tonight!

Oh Karen that gave me a good chuckle....made me think to be wary of my bug battle efforts a wee bit...knowing when to STOP is a good thing....we all get a bit ocd about something and usually it is a favorite hobby such as gardening!

Yes I am aware those slugs like to hide in my mulch....earlier this Spring I pulled back the mulch around the plants affected in my mulchy backyard and saved them. Now the mystery remains why I have an abundance in the front yard beds where no mulch resides?!?!!?

Thank you for your good humor and fun writing style.....I appreciate both!

...."a mulch group".....

How much mulching is too much? When does one become and addict?

I keep my beds and flowers under MINIMUM one inch...ususally 2-3....including around the rootballs, but NOT up against the bark and trunks of trees.

I heavily mulch 3 inches, every other years.....in the interim that decomposes down to an inch. When it gets really low, to that point or seeing my landscape cloth...I know the layer is too thin. Then I remulch.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by clbselah:
How much mulching is too much? QUOTE]

For me, 3 inches is too much. I just can't keep the birds from scratching around in it and tossing it everywhere!. Plus I have sloping beds, and every time I watered or it rained, the mulch slid down over the tops of my grasses and young tender shoots. I would literally have to uncover the crowns on each plant every single day sometimes, and I wasn't keeping up with uncovering duty very well! Before I knew it, I was looking at unhealthy, yellowed plants, full of slug holes and chewed off stems.

Right now, I have less than one inch of mulch left on most of my beds. It still looks good, and is keeping the weeds at bay. I may have to water a bit more, but at least I'll have living plants to water!

If you don't have the same issues with retention and feathered friends, your plants may do well with more mulch.

Just don't get addicted!!

Very cute story. I wish I had your energy.

Read this with a chuckle and a smile. You really should be a writer....I could "see" you out there with your shovel mulching!

Too cute and so entertaining. Thank You.


ve

you scared me... you said you gathered the leaves from your trees... the walnut included... no......walnut has juglone... and that's not good for your other plants....might need to skip that one's offerings....

I loved the whole thing, otherwise!!... *smile*

Thanks, Karen...I enjoyed your story...glad you caught your problem.

I'm thinking about raking all the old mulch off and starting all over. Sigh...it's a mess.

Well, the mods intercepted my last post so I'll re-word:

Thanks guys for the encouragement with my story! I was a little hesitant to share it, but then I figured I am among friends here, and what better place to b o m b (trig ger word) than a place where people will still like me tomorrow???

And KYIS--what's going on? Do you need a mulch in ter ven tion? (another possible trig ger word?) If so, I'll be your sponsor!!

hey you guys, shovel it up my way. After 4+ hours of hard labor, pulling up weeds, I don't ever want to weed like that again. Those thistles were huge! Bring on the mulch or something!!!

Very cute story. We never reached your stage of addiction since we were wiped out by shoveling 8 yards one year. That did us in, we don't get loads any more, instead we get bags that we can easily drag around. I have to admire your tenacity and energy--you must be the energizer bunny of mulch!

karen, that had me smiling all the way through the tale. What a hoot!

Are you saying that some of my gardens having 6 inch mulch beds is a tad bit too much mulch? I should take it down to what, 5 inches? LOL

Where did you find a home for your unwanted mulch?
I picture entire valleys filled with orphaned mulch from Karen's awakening to her mulch madness.

(wonder if I could sneak into the valley for aged, free mulch?)

quote:

For me, 3 inches is too much

by Hazel, a/k/a Karen

I loved your Mulch Story!!! I love the way you write and you're a very good writer. (I love writing as well!)
(It was very amusing, although I do understand that there is nothing amusing about addictions). I have a few questions to ask you about your past mulching compulsion. You said you mulched less than 3". That does NOT sound like too much mulch!!! That sounds perfectly normal, so I don't understand how it became too much mulch. Mulch doesn't dwindle down that quickly, and at the rate you were reapplying it and reapplying it, I'm sure it stayed level (when the birds weren't playing with it, that is!) So when did it become 'too much mulch' that was put down, that you noticed your flowers and day lilies desperately trying to survivie despite the obstacles?
I use my homemade compost as 'mulch'. I just put it under all my shrubs a few days ago. It looks great. But that is the only mulch I use. I never buy any from the store. (I used to love examining the insects in the soil, so I would never mulch!) Most of my other beds have these pretty rocks around them, put here by the previous owner. Only the row of shrubs in the back have no rocks underneath them, so when I learned about 'compost' (right here on these boards!!!), I started composting with a fury!
Tell me about your past mulching practices. Did you have a schedule, or did you just throw down mulch whenever you decided a bed could use a little more? I assume you did not have those dreaded MULCH VOLCANOS and kept the mulch away from the stems/trunks, right Karen?!! So when did it become "too much mulch" - you said you kept it less than 3" of mulch? Please explain!
I am soooooo happy you were able to end your compulsive addiction without an OVERMULCHING 12 Step Program. So now that you have so much more free time, have you taken up any other 'hobbies'?!!!

"I picture entire valleys filled with orphaned mulch from Karen's awakening to her mulch madness." Oh Debbie, that had me laughing out loud!! I sense you might be quite the writer too!! No, I just started a couple of new beds this year that had no mulch on them yet, so the orphaned mulch went to live there. Plus, I have a lot of pathways and bare spots with nothing planted in them yet, so I didn't have to send anything to the Home for Aged Mulch!! I'll let you know, though, if I do!

Wavie, I see where you thought I meant I mulched less than 3" and that was too much, but I was answering clbselah's question, "how much is too much" because she said she used 3". I responded, for me, even 3" is too much, because in those FEW place where I only had 3" of mulch, I still had the same problem. Most of my beds had 4 or more inches, and the mulch was always piling up around the stems and crowns of my plants. Imagine a hosta with only a 6-8" stem, covered by at least 4 inches of mulch. Or another plant with an even shorter stem, like my Japanese painted ferns, and the entire center of the plant would be covered in mulch. It was just smothering everything.

So, I'm saying NOW, I've determined that 3" is going to be too much for me. And NOOOOOOO, I don't do the volcano thing....I do the donut thing!! I also cringe when I see that--hey! Even those of us in recovery have things we'd NEVER do!!!

I'm sure the birds are 80% of the problem--they are really sloppy eaters! Then the other 20% is the sloping nature of the beds. I almost lost an ornamental grass because of it, and now that I've removed the mulch and am letting its feet breathe a little, it is coming back.

Does that clarification help, Wavie?

Two inches seem about right, but I am always trying to get the stuff down by the end of the season. I start out with good intentions to mulch each bed and then I get sidetracked and let it go. Right now I have at least a dozen bags of mulch stacked in the driveway and I need to mulch some beds. Your story will get me moving! I went out to look at the daylilies this morning and noticed weeds where we didn't mulch, grrr, never trust a DH to finish up when you go in the house to make dinner! But I'm still laughing over your plants gasping for their lives when you nearly buried them in mulch. I can just hear the sighs of relief when you saved them from being buried by mounds of mulch!

Cute! And very good! You need to do free lance stuff...you're a lot better than a bunch of others I've read over the years.
Why not print that & send it to a few magazines??? Who knows, you might make a buck or two!

My mulch is very natural woodchips from yard waste pickup...thinking a little over an inch...enough to cover up thick layer of newspapers I put down a few years ago. Some gets lost over the year and I retop each Spring. Those darn newspapers are still decomposing!!! Do not miss the weeds for certain but a few poke out now and then...a small price to pay and sure are easy to spot once we "perfect" our non-plant areas.

I'll second the motion...Karen needs to submit her story to help the masses of mulchers who don't know when to say WHEN.....

just imagine hearing the sound of two hands clapping.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bana,

quote:

Most of my beds had 4 or more inches, and the mulch was always piling up around the stems and crowns of my plants. Imagine a hosta with only a 6-8" stem, covered by at least 4 inches of mulch. Or another plant with an even shorter stem, like my Japanese painted ferns, and the entire center of the plant would be covered in mulch

by Karen

Ohhhhhh, I see! That is quite a problem!! I have about 2-3" of compost underneath my shrubs now, but my shrubs are about 7' tall! That's terrible what you have done!!!! Killing your children like that..... I am glad you cleaned up the madness of your ways and your babies are on the road to recovery.
(On the other hand, as far as 'addictions' go, I think this is the best addiction you can have)!!!! You got alot of exercise me thinks!!!

Oh shoot.. I just wrote a long response and it was grabbed by the MB police...

I enjoyed your novella, it was fun and imaginative. I feel like I'm giving a book review. LOL!

Those of us who have battled the "plants in the wrong places" for years, can empathize. I buy large pine bark mulch by the dump truck load so I can relate. I have a mountain of it sitting out there right now. We have very sandy soil so it can rain 10 inches in one week and 2-3 days later be dust dry, so I mulch pretty heavily. The raccoons, opossums and armadillos have their way with it, looking for grubs and slugs and sometimes uproot small plants but that's not as bad as the squirrels planting stuff in my pots.

I've seen the "volcanos" you speak of. Mostly on public lands or on landscaped street medians. City workers put 5 years worth of mulch around the poor trees hoping that it should lengthen the time between trips. When passing I imagine tro11s taking up residence, but know more likely it will be mice.

Do you think there are support groups for over-mulchers and pot add.icts?

LOL at your story Karen! Love your step by step adventures with the mulch beds. I am with you and there must something to it. Like catnip makes the kitties crazy.

Raising my hand to confess too. Went to visit our neighbor across the street and looked back at the garden beds. They looked like a cof*fin patch. So shovel by shovel it's gone and the beds are re-leveled.

BUT WAIT...just bought 8 new bags tonight to put down. Love that mulch!

I miss Hazel/Karen a/k/a OVER MULCHER!!!
I was wondering how her addiction rehab was coming along......

Great tale! Really should be published in a gardening magazine!

Until this year I had never had enough mulch (refused to buy it by the bag) since I made my own compost/mulch. However, this year I have plenty of mulch so your story is very timely for me. Now buying it by the dump-truck load. I'm in danger of becoming an "Over-Mulcher" as it's so fun to smother those awful weed seeds. I'm determined to control the weeds altho don't want to do in my plants. Haven't used it long enough to see what the weather or birds do or if the bugs increase. I'll be very cautious after reading your warnings - thanks for that as well as the laugh.