To mulch or not to mulch

[EllenParsnips]

Our first house, our first garden and we've been given a great present of a garden makeover. It is a very small garden. I don't know much about gardening but I picked up that you can cover any bare earth with mulch or slate pieces and I quite fancy that.

The gardener was surprised when we suggested it. Is there something I don't know. I thought it would keep weeds away. What about that layer of permeable plastic that people put down under chuckies; would that work too?

Please help, I'm useless at this.

Yes, you can put down weed-proof membrane and put chippings on the top. The membrane is decent at keeping down weeds, though it doesn't mean that none will sprout, and there will still be some maintenance.

I think one of the problems is that this sometimes looks quite bad, often because people tend to do it on uneven surfaces that don't have proper borders etc. It does take a bit of landscaping work to get it to look 'good' so it's not always the easy/cheap option that it might sound. I think your gardener might have been a bit because it often doesn't really create a garden as much as outdoor hardstanding.

If you would like something a bit greener (and I urge you to think about this - it could be the start of an amazing journey into gardening!) you may be better off putting mulch (which is sort of black earthy gold - contains loads of nutrients plants need) straight on the soil and planting some low-maintenance shrubs with a bit of a patio/lawn seating area. Apart from the odd prune once or twice a year, these don't require much care once established. (There will be a bit of weeding while they are small, but if you get out there regularly it isn't onerous. It's a bit like cleaning, really - if you leave it for ages you face a hell of a job whereas little and often is relatively straightforward).

You can buy cheap shrubs in Aldi over the next couple of weeks - they are something like £1.80 each. Get a mix of evergreen and non-evergreens so you get a bit of colour all year round. You could even add some spring bulbs so it looks pretty early next year!

Sorry- meant to say if budget is a consideration, it might be worth spending what you have on hard landscaping, e.g. a patio. It is easy and cheap to add mulch to soil, dig it in, and plant into it yourself, especially in a small garden.

Whoa - you have a makeover for free and are quibbling about mulch?

Give the gardener your brief and let them come up with some ideas.

What do you want to use the garden for? Seating, eating, football, veggie patch?

Then work from there.

Shovetheholly - thank you for all your advice. I do like the look of mulch (but I thought that the plastic should go under it!) and I like some of the dark blue/grey slates pieces so I suppose I don't need the plastic too.

I will try and do the weeding regularly - although if it correlates with housekeeping then I'm in trouble.

It's a small front garden so no sitting in it. I hope the neighbour's cat also follows that rule. Is there any issues with mulching/slate pieces and cats?

Doreen - I don't think you read my question properly as I didn't quibble about the cost of mulch - thanks anyway.

I didn't mention cost.

Oh dear, EP; how small does it have to be that you can't sit in it? Or do you mean because of traffic, passers by etc?

And is there also a back garden, or not?

It does seem a shame that you don't have plants if you have a garden! (Listen to 'auntie' 'shovetheholly' and take her advice.)

Oh dear, perhaps I haven't explained myself properly. It is a small garden but the gardener is designing a planting plan so we are going to have plants, shrubs, flowers etc. I'm just wondering about putting mulch on top of the bare bits of earth between the plants.

Listen to 'auntie' 'shovetheholly' and take her advice.

Blimey, Ferguson, I'll never shut up if you go on like that!!

Ellen - I was confused before, I think I understand what you are asking now. But just to make sure (because I am having an exceptionally dim day): you are saying that you intend to have a garden full of plants eventually and you're wondering whether you should put stone chippings or some kind of mulch between them to keep down weeds for a bit while they establish? Correct?

If that is the case, then I would definitely not use chippings. They are useful if you are going for something incredibly architectural, where you literally want just one tree and then loads of clear space around it. However, if your overall desired effect is a kind of fuller or more cottagey garden, they will quickly get in your way (maybe not in year 1 but in years 2-5!) Also, gardening is amazing and so much fun that you will probably get addicted once you start to see it thrive. Then you will want to buy more plants and put them in. It will be easier to do this with soil that isn't covered with stone. It's also easier for plants to spread themselves out as they grow.

I would also avoid membrane with either chippings or mulch. It won't necessarily help that much and it can get all mushroomy and damp and stop the soil breathing quite as well as it should. I used it as weed sheeting in my garden when I was first planting, and in places the soil underneath went weird and slimy.

I would instead get a big ole thick covering of organic mulch (something really dark and wonderful like compost + leaf mould) down. And I am talking a good 3-4 inches on all the bare bits. This will do several things. It will keep weeds down, it will give your new plants lots of lovely nutrients and it will gradually get incorporated by worms and other minibeasts, building up a really lovely rich culture in your soil. After a while (6-12 months?) it will break down and vanish and you will need to put more on - you can replace it with more mulch or with something like strulch which I haven't used personally but hear great things about - it is a bit of a longer-lasting mulch that is supposed to work really well once you've improved the soil.

Now here's the bad news: you will still need to weed! But in a small space, it's not that bad, promise. Another bit of bad news: cats do like to poo in mulch or smaller chippings. Mine treat mulch like ultra-soft loo paper. However, in mulch it will just break down in the soil and hopefully cause you no problems. Just get yourself some gloves to weed to be on the safe side!

I'd also make sure that anything you put in gets a bit ole load of compost in the hole you dig to plant it.

Shovetheholly - thank you very much for all that information, I really appreciate it. I couldn't understand why our gardener was so surprised when I mentioned the things I did...membrane, chippings etc and he didn't explain.

This is a learning curve for me.

It can feel really bewildering at the start and it's easy to get discouraged by the volume of information out there (not all of which is always consistent, which makes it even harder!). It's really good that you have a boost in the form of a bit of help at the start, because that's often the most daunting bit! Getting the soil and basic structure of the garden right is a lot of the battle. Just think - this time next year, you'll be well on the way to having a beautiful space outside your house!

I'm not just saying this to make you feel better, but because it's true: most gardeners are learning all the time. Every year is different and nature has a way of throwing a curveball at you just when you think something is going well. I don't know about the others - I'm sure they can give you more sage advice - but I've found that since I started I've just become a little bit more confident at dealing with whatever comes up, and a little bit better at not beating myself up when things go wrong. Whereas before I used to panic and feel like I was completely rubbish and a failure, now I am more likely to shrug and say "Oh well, that was a bit of a disaster, I won't be making that mistake again!" And then try another thing!

Keep posting! We'd love to see some pictures of the transformation if you have time!!

Thank you shovetheholly :)

Don't put down plastic membrane! Vile stuff. Weeds will still grow in the mulch layer on top of it, the roots will go down into the plastic then it's a bugger of a job to get them out. If you want to change your planting further down the line, it's tricky to get established/dead plants out of it and you have to cut new holes to put new ones in, which is really faffy. The plastic will inevitably surface in places as the mulch thins/gets rearranged by birds and cats and will look rubbish.

Rant over.

My favourite mulch is Strulch which keeps down weeds very well, looks attractive, feeds the soil and is a pleasure to work with as it is light and smells lovely (well I think it does).

Slate can look smart if you keep it tidy - ie remove leaves and debris. It suits very formal gardens in an urban setting. If you want low maintenance, I would avoid slate/pebbles/gravel.

Definitely mulch, but weed first. Weedmat is the work of the devil, and I've spent a few years pulling up the last bits. So hard to get new plants going.

Strulch looks interesting, but doesn't exist in au. I use pea straw on the veggie beds and native mulch everywhere else. The big thing is to keep the mulch away from plant stems, and to be of sufficiently open texture to let rain through.