Mulching for dummies

[SageBlossomBunny]

This year was the first year I really started to garden... We're lowish income so it wasn't a landscaping /lots of fully formed plants job but more we've started getting bits from the garden centre and putting them in as we like them. It's also small terrace garden sized.

So there's still gaps in the garden. I'd love eventually to have an overflowing cottage garden look but as well as finances I am a very novice gardener! I am hoping some of what we have will grow into the space though.

Anyway mulch. I keep reading conflicting things. I like the idea of it for leaving the garden tidy after weeding it (it's weedy again at the moment) and suppressing weeds in the spring.

I was going to buy b and q bark but then read that it's better to have it composted. Also I googled my garden centre and it's cheaper.

"growmore garden mulch" is composted bark and actually cheaper in the garden centre than B and Q

And I saw the garden centre has "country care" compost (mushroom and horse?? How do you decide) cheaper even than Asda compost.

Is this better to use than the bark.

(Presumably this also isn't what I want for planting bulbs in?)

Please help a novice!

Some mulch is used more for weed suppression and some more for feeding the soil. Personally I prefer finer particle mulch (like composted bark/mushroom compost) as it’ll suppress weeds as well as improve/feed the soil. Large pieces such as bark mulch can keep the soil wet and can be hard to weed/plant through. If you want cottage garden style you might want to plant through the mulch in spring to get the fuller look so finer particles might be easier? Compost mulch is fine for bulbs as well if it’s just a layer on the soil.

Thankyou :)

I'll give it a go this year with the composted bark above.

Part 2.... Planting bulbs. (just tulips daffodils etc from lidl) Do I reuse old compost /buy Asda compost/garden centre compost?

Its a whole world where I don't know the difference.

Are they in containers? If you only want them for one year then old compost or a mix of old and new should be fine as bulbs have all the nutrients they need. If you want to keep the bulbs for years then they might want compost with nutrients in to make sure they flower the year after 🙂

Thankyou so much. My googlefu was not on it today! I'm loving watching the plants I have grown and the birds coming to my bird feeder (took a while but now I have blue tits, great tits and goldfinches regularly. And a daily pigeon (trying not to encourage these but I have one that comes and clears up what the above drop).

I love it. I just realise there's so much to learn!