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All about Mulch!
152 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, we're going to dig into the topic of mulch. What is it, why do you need it, and how do you use it? Whether you have a big backyard a tiny balcony, or a commercial operation mulch can help you keep your plants healthy and happy. So grab your shovel and let's get started!
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture.
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome back to the pod. Thank you. Somehow that sounded like it should have been a dun dun dun. I feel scared. Well, I need an adult. That was a very dark tone, Alexis. You just you need a dramatic entrance when we start talking about mulch. Nailed it. Nailed it. It's my personal opinion. Oh, mulch.
Weather Impact on Plant Growth
00:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's the topic. Yeah, that's a very dark kind of dramatic topic. How's everybody doing today? How you feeling? How's it going?
00:00:47
Speaker
good good good good good you know it seems like here in Kentucky and this is just completely random speaking of mulch but not really um that it was one of the coolest June's here in Kentucky and like the last I don't know recorded near history like 50 to 60 I forget the time range but in several years and that that that really kind of job with me because I was just talking to my wife I said you know there's not been any hundred degree days in June when
00:01:13
Speaker
you know July now and yeah it's just kind of mid 80s and we haven't had a lot a lot of those spots in total so yeah have you you guys been filling the weather according to my temperature blanket we had a 91 and a 92 degree day in June but
00:01:30
Speaker
But not consistently. Not consistently, you're right. But yeah, I was kind of surprised that on record, I guess, in total, that we had such a cool June. I really didn't. I thought it kind of felt average, but I guess I wasn't thinking enough about it, people. Back in in 2020, when, you know, in June of 2020, stuff was going crazy in so many different ways, including the virus and the protests and everything else in the weather.
00:01:58
Speaker
in Kentucky was like so nice. It was like perfect weather for this week of time and everything felt so chaotic but like the space that I was in was like extremely peaceful and like cool and nice and I legitimately thought that maybe I had died.
00:02:17
Speaker
Have you ever watched the TV series Lost? Where they're only on, but they're really- They've died and gone to Central Kentucky. I was in the interstitial space where my neurons were firing and saying that everything was crazy, but also this tremendous amount of peace, and now it just was kind of a cool spell. So the month-long version of it, similar kind of thing, but this time around it felt a little less hectic.
00:02:45
Speaker
Every now and again, I get that feeling when it's just the perfect temperature or maybe there's a breeze blowing. You have sort of this little, you know, we hear about people being in the moment. Well, every now and again, usually for briefer periods of time, but I kind of get in the moment. I never know when it's going to happen. And it's usually, you know, one of those weather days and it's kind of peaceful. But yeah, so you had an extended time of kind of that. Today is the presence. That's why they call it a gift.
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah. Well done.
Heat Effects Across the U.S.
00:03:17
Speaker
I was going to say, if it's really hot out and you're feeling that like suddenly everything feels perfect and good, that's heat stroke. Yeah, that's delusional. That's your brain cooking. I mean.
00:03:34
Speaker
So if you're feeling that way in August, like, no. Yeah, you've been cutting tobacco or out in the field too long. You need to go in. You've been too long in the sun. June may have been cool, but here in July, I've been leaking a lot of water.
00:03:51
Speaker
Indeed. Yeah. July's warmed up. And in our Southwest, 114 degrees the other day. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow. I cannot even register that on my personal body temperature scale, what I would be doing at 114 degrees. Is it 114 dry?
00:04:10
Speaker
There's been some like wet bulb events in like kind of East Texas and Louisiana and stuff where it's like very high humidity, very high heat. Like he's kind of like a heat dome kind of form for a bit there.
00:04:23
Speaker
Hmm. So not good. No, not good. Side bar really quick. So I don't remember what group of people I was in lately, but I said something like, oh, oh, I was at the farmer's market with the extension table and some people from Texas were here and they were like, oh, you all think that, you know, well, he, you know, how everybody just like a big 10 gallon hat, like six years.
00:04:52
Speaker
Pulls up in a Cadillac with a Longhorn on the front. I'm sorry if you're from Texas. You're probably great. We all do it, right? If you're from, you know, New Hampshire, you're going to say how much colder your winters are, whatever. Sorry that Kentucky is just average at everything. Or extreme at everything. That's true, we are.
00:05:15
Speaker
but I said something like oh yeah well in Texas you all will it's that it's that good dry heat and like frying in a frying pan in Kentucky we boil in the water and they thought that was the weirdest thing I well it's always
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's always important when you're talking to texas people. Are they east texas? Are they west? I don't know. I just feel like that's something kentuckians say. That's where I pick them from. But anybody just don't get dallas and fort worth mixed up with each other. You'll be fine. I was like, yeah, we're like frogs here. We just slowly boil to death. Yeah. Right. It's just over time. It's killing me south of them.
00:05:55
Speaker
Well, nevertheless, as I have been leaking water, and I've looked around, and I've been on walks, or gone around, even around our place, I've also noticed that the areas of the ground where there's no grass, there's no nothing, they've been leaking some water too.
Mulching Techniques and Benefits
00:06:14
Speaker
Crusty, and they're dry, and they're contrast that. The other day, so I have a little, as those who know me,
00:06:23
Speaker
know that I'm a meter guy. Ray and I both have light meters, I think. I also have a soil moisture meter that takes instantaneous readings. And it's helpful because down below the surface of an area that I have covered in some organic material chipped into small pieces that was once a tree, the moisture content down there
00:06:45
Speaker
was actually still quite adequate for plant growth. And so I think that I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the importance this time of year. We don't maybe do a lot of mulching this time of year, but that mulch on the surface plays a number of different roles, not least of which is the retention of that water down there. Now, I have not taken to mulching my bald forehead to keep the moisture in. I like to prefer to let it go off.
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah. As much as it can in this humidity. Would a toboggan be mulch for your head like in the winter? Well, then we're going to cover that, Ray. Okay. I want to know the scope of this. Only if you're growing plants under it. Yeah, not all mulches wear capes. No, not all mulches are organic material. Some of them are some other things as well. But do you all have a particular moment of gratitude for mulch that you'd like to share?
00:07:38
Speaker
I have a moment of ferocity to share. Pretty standard in the world of Alexis. What else is new?
00:08:03
Speaker
We're gonna we're gonna talk about this later, but I just had to point out that you know how bad it looks when your landscape company Makes puts all your trees when we redid our landscape. I had it all
00:08:16
Speaker
done and most of the plants like 99% of the plants on this property all known natives and a lot of trees got put in we already had a decent amount of trees but we put in a lot a lot of trees and I'm really proud of that here at the Boyle County Extension Office but what I'm not proud of is the fact that they have all been volcano mulched
00:08:37
Speaker
And I feel like it is a direct arrow to the heart of mine. You want to define that for us, Alexis? Volcano mulch. What are we talking about here? Volcano mulch is when you mulch up. I'm making hand gestures as if you all are listening. It is when you mulch up the stem of the plant, of the tree, of the shrub. With a really short traffic cone.
00:09:05
Speaker
or a volcano. Yeah, or even your piling mulch against the trunk.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yes, and that is not good, and we're gonna talk about that after we talk more about mulch in general, but we prefer what we call donut mulching, which means that you're making a little hole, pulling it back away from the trunk of the tree, and then you have your donut, the meaty substance of the donut a few inches away from the trunk of the plant. You had me a donut? I have just had two donuts in between. Do not volcano mulch donut mulch.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, I'll remember that. We're going to have a little blocked in on that. Does anybody have a definition? What are we talking about? I've already gathered from you folks from the broad discussion we've already had on mulch. That mulch is a lot of different things. What's your definition of mulch before we dive into this? Because it's pretty interesting. You guys have mentioned a lot of different things so far. Oh yeah, I've got
00:10:09
Speaker
A garden mulches any material, organic, inorganic, mineral, whatever. Animal, vegetable, miracle. Oil. Whatever. No, probably not. Well, a tire. Well, a plastic, hey. Plastic and tires, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, a garden mulches any material, literally anything you could imagine, that's spread on the soil surface to modify the environment where the plant is growing. Some work better than others.
00:10:39
Speaker
Indeed, indeed. So you'll hear the term plastic mulch used a lot and so that can be a couple different types of plastic mulches can be something like.
00:10:50
Speaker
We also call it landscape fabric. And I'm not talking about the, um, you know, felt like material that you find at Lowe's or I'm sorry, I'm picking on Lowe's Lowe's Home Depot. Name a box store. You find it there. It's more like a felt type material. Technically, I guess that is a mulch, but we do not recommend that in the industry because it breaks down so quickly into not good things.
00:11:16
Speaker
What I'm referring to is more like a plastic woven kind of like a tarp is the way And so that's something that you usually are like burning holes into because you're burning that plastic Versus cutting it it unravels exactly like a tarp would
00:11:32
Speaker
And so you'll hear that, but you'll also see in a lot of large scale production plastic mulches that are laid down over usually raised beds created by a implement, a tractor typically of some sort, sometimes by hand. And those sides are covered with soil and then it's a thin plastic that is holes are punched into it either by hand or again by an implement
00:11:59
Speaker
and plants are dropped down into that plastic. And so you'll hear plastic mulch often used for production. There's also what's called bioplastics. And so it looks like a plastic, but it's made from a variety
00:12:15
Speaker
I think it's like cellulose a lot. Yeah, it's like cellulose, but it can be black, I think, or white. And it actually breaks down in one season and can be tilled into the ground. So I think a lot of growers are moving to that. Depending on where they are in the United States, it will last a season. And if you're hot and humid,
00:12:34
Speaker
in a wet area, then it doesn't necessarily always last as much long as you need because that cellulose breaks down. But then also there's living mulches, which I think can be a little bit confusing to think about. And are sort of weird to think of as a mulch. And so that can be something like, I always think of teff. Is anybody familiar with teff? I can throw down on some injera.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So who, Brett, you have some experience. Well, and Josh have experience with living mulch. I really don't have a ton of experience with living mulch. Um, so I will hand that over to you. It kind of, it kind of falls into, like it crosses the border between mulch and intercropping and interplanting. And like, it's kind of a,
00:13:22
Speaker
We like to have neat and tidy terms, but the general idea is that you're planting some sort of living plant alongside your cash crop. Whether that be in like border, I mean, whether that be in like the walking paths or spaces between could also be in some cases like right up to the plant. There's some concerns about stealing nutrients from the cash crop, but the general idea is that instead of having to either
00:13:49
Speaker
cultivate that and get rid of weeds, the living mulch can out compete it, but it also provides a nice root structure to hold that soil together so the compaction and muddiness and everything else. I can say, I'm not exactly sure on the yield maximization of that, but I will say that harvesting stuff out of an area with living mulch after it's rained is a considerably more enjoyable experience than
00:14:13
Speaker
doing it in a mud hole. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, my- You can't get your wagons in there and stuff. So it's like, it's more than just that. It's like easier. Right. Teff that you were mentioning is like a tropical grass grown in, so it is grown across parts of Africa and Asia for its grain, which is a staple crop of Ethiopia, for instance.
00:14:33
Speaker
And so they make a bread, a fermented bread out of it called injera that I will throw down on and it's like tangy and spongy and you serve it and you use it to pick up anyway. But we don't, we wouldn't want it to go to seed in a living mulch scenario. It's a very fine, fine bladed grass that's often used for that. Sorry, Josh. Yeah. I was just going to say the experience I have with it is a couple of farms that I worked on one and
00:15:02
Speaker
South Georgia and one in Southern Japan, both of them used these kind of, they would refer to the practice as like a grassy pathway, but it was the spaces between beds or rice paddies were densely seeded and planted. And I think they would have overseed each year with white clover.
00:15:25
Speaker
essentially. So you have this kind of nitrogen fixed area for the vegetable production that was using it. The concept was that like made later on, they might rotate where their beds and their pathways are or whatever. And they were just keeping it in, you know, a ready state and a fertile state. But also as Brett said, you know, like having that pathway of that size and be nice and soft was pleasant to work in and be around. You know, it's like a nice, soft, cleaner kind of that
00:15:57
Speaker
That's something we don't talk a lot about. One of the functions of mulch, and different mulches have all these kind of different mechanical properties, but one of the big functions of mulch to me is its ability to keep soil compaction to a minimum. Whatever that mulch is, whether a living mulch or a coarse, you know, nugget mulch or, you know, some kind of coarse ground mulch, that's one of the things that's important
Mulch Types and Applications
00:16:20
Speaker
to me. That's a function of mulch.
00:16:22
Speaker
And you know, Alexis already alluded to it, you know, commercially we.
00:16:26
Speaker
You know, it's very common. We say we use black mulch, black plastic mulch. And we're talking about this production system where we use plastic. And usually there's irrigation associated with that system under there. But, you know, there's all these reasons why we do that because it's a big hassle. And that mulch for the most part, once the production season is over, you have to take it up. And that's an incredible process, labor intensive process where you have to rip that plastic up at the end of the season.
00:16:53
Speaker
and dispose of that hopefully you find a way to recycle that or you may get two seasons out of that but some of the reasons that we do that or what you know and that's a mulch and I know this is not what homeowners may be accustomed to but
00:17:07
Speaker
It's near and dear to those of us in commercial horticulture, conserved moisture, who mentioned nutrient profiles because living mulches affect the nutrient profile, but so does covering the soil. As far as if you're in a sandy region, when we work with some of our folks down in the southern US, this mulch that covers beds, it's a big deal to them because it keeps nutrient wash to a minimum.
00:17:30
Speaker
What are some of the other benefits? I know you guys have worked with this commercial production system before we get more into the homeowner side of things, but brain splash, blot on tomatoes. I mean, that's disease suppression. All of these are reasons why I get the question a lot in the county, well, why do you guys go to this labor intensive very environmentally?
00:17:51
Speaker
Intensive process where all of these are reasons what what else are we missing here commercially before we flip over to homeowners? There's a lot of there's a lot of reason definitely like black plastic, but I mean even with organic mulches They increase the soil temperature and that
00:18:06
Speaker
improves yields later on. I mean, I remember when yeah, when I was in the commercial fruit and veg production class, they showed like some of the graphs and metrics, and how much that boosted kind of yield to jump in some cases, depending and maybe even more, not only are you on a raised bed, typically with a bed shaper, this little implement that Alexa sort of described that raises up the bed, but then you cover that with a plastic that further enhances
00:18:32
Speaker
enhances that thermal profile. But yeah, we consider a mulch. Because once again, by Josh's definition, we're modifying the local growing environment. So that's kind of what this is doing. All mulches are created equal as far as your goals are.
00:18:48
Speaker
You said you were saying, you know, black plastic will increase soil temperatures in the spring. True. Any black obviously is going to absorb that heat, increase it and get those plants in earlier in reverse. Something like a hardwood mulch is going to keep the soil cooler longer in the springtime, but it also is going to keep it warmer longer in the fall. So it.
00:19:12
Speaker
Gives you yeah, like mediates it. Yeah, and it mediates it exactly Yeah more consistent temperature throughout the year, which is gonna be really important for a lot of our you know, perennial crops That really sensitive especially with these crazy fluctuations that we've been having. Yeah, you know, I'm everywhere but definitely in Kentucky
00:19:32
Speaker
I think I'll just, in case you tuned into this episode and you're like, I thought you all were going to talk about mulch. What have you all been talking about? All of these are techniques that are used in like commercial horticulture operations for the most part that we've mentioned so far. So like if this is something that's foreign to you, that's cool. I mean, you're learning something new, but the, and the black plastic component, the traditional black plastic or conventional black plastic, what do you want to call it?
00:19:59
Speaker
is used, it's like a disposable product. So it's like a one-time use. You might be able to get two cropping cycles out of it. Very thin. There are people who can grow early beans and then put something else, early pumpkins or something, and then come behind it afterward and do that. But it's a very thin, stretchy, disposable thing that you have to get out of the ground. Typically, there's a line of irrigation tubing run underneath it.
00:20:26
Speaker
if you're doing irrigation, which allows you to put fertilizer right at the roots of the plants. But just in case that was a little bit of a disorienting shock to people who thought, oh, I was thinking of those bags that they sell at the home center of the scoops that they put in back of my pickup truck. I have gas station everywhere. Everywhere has mulch now. That's just a little bit of an orientation. And I think, yeah, Ray, as far as the
00:20:50
Speaker
commercial applications of mulch, it creates this little like amazing environment for this root system to grow where you can control the amount of water that's getting in there. You can control the fertility. You've typically raised the bed up so it's nice and loose for those annual roots, the roots of those annuals to get in there and kind of find a nice footing for growth.
00:21:18
Speaker
Um, there's a lot. It helps reduce crusting. That's a big deal. I mean, that's, uh, soil crusting to allow kind of the water infiltration along with. And did we mention like weed suppression? Cause that, you know, it's like a huge labor cost. Yeah. Well, there are some similarities between our, our commercial uses of mulch and, uh, homeowners, because many of the things that we're saying that Brett just kind of summarized can also apply on the homeowner side of things. But it gets interesting for homeowners because
00:21:47
Speaker
I don't know about you guys, Alexis mentioned that, yeah, gas stations or box stores, there's mulch coming at you from multiple different locations, usually in every community. It's like you can buy it in bag or, you know, you may have a local supply center that will do it by the scoop. Sometimes you'll get a better deal with that. But guys, is all of that material, I mean, it's carbon material to me. A lot of that is woody fibers. In some cases, we may talk a little bit about rocks, but
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah. Does anybody have a favorite mulch or application? I know, Brad, you have some mulch in the backyard, but what about all of these sources, bag mulch or whatever? Is it all created equal or are there differences?
00:22:29
Speaker
One big contrast with these organic mulches versus the black plastic is that the black plastic, according to at least my sensibilities, is ugly. It looks bad. Aesthetics is not a strong point of that because that's definitely designed for a mechanized process. And people say, well, why do they go to the, well, it's on acres and acres and it can be done quickly and efficiently.
00:22:53
Speaker
to produce crops. So that's a different goal than a homeowner that wants things to be a little bit more pleasing to the eye. Yeah, but within the more landscaping side of things, it might be homeowners, it might be businesses, it might be parks, there's different types of parks, different types of bark-based
00:23:21
Speaker
mulches. I personally have used hardwood mulches like Alexis mentioned. Oh yeah. I've used some big. That seems to be the most common. The most common is like the double ground hardwood. And even now I see that I've noticed during the past several years now there's all these fun colors that they actually add colors to that mulch. Oh yeah. Which you talk to people and it's really polarizing. They either want the dark hardwood ground double ground mulch or whatever or they some people don't they like the fun colors. Yeah.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, some of the some of the ones that are dark are also kind of died like a like, you know, kind of pushed towards that black
00:23:56
Speaker
get that impression of like, you know, real fertile soil, right? Yeah, yeah. I used some I had done. What did I have last? I went through three types of mulch. I went through pine bark nuggets and loved those. But my front lawn is small, but it has got a little bit of water that runs there. I learned very quickly that pine bark nuggets, I love them. They last a long time. Their course, love them.
00:24:21
Speaker
but they float and they wash. So yeah, that was very frustrating. That was my favorite top art, just pine bark nuggets. I love them. So then I went to Cyprus, which specifically has this interesting quality of it's no float. It'll stay put. It locks fairly well together. But Josh just nailed it. I looked at this beautiful dark brown mulch, had color attitudes, had season long color. So now I'm on that.
00:24:48
Speaker
In my front lawn area, I have went through three versions of mulch. They're all wood-based mulch or bark-based mulch, but they each, all three of them had completely different qualities. The cypress from what I've seen, it typically, I don't see a lot of colorant added to cypress mulch, and it does have that cool feature of it doesn't float with water nearly as bad as like the pine bark nuggets.
00:25:11
Speaker
But it's the color, man, that got me on the hardwood mulch. That's what I'm using now. I actually use, specifically, so I have the colors of mulch are used as a feature in the landscaping design that my wife had this past year.
00:25:27
Speaker
And I specifically use cypress mulch in shady areas to brighten it up. Oh, I love it, yeah. And to give a sense of breadth and width to the, what's a really small yard. Yeah. But for that exact reason that- Did you do like the texture of it as well? I mean, it's a little bit different texture. Yeah, it kinda, from a distance, it gives a little bit of pine needle-ish, like elongation and stringiness, but it is- They're kinda pointy.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah, the color, the color of it in particular, I really liked. And it's a nice way to differentiate two spaces because I was trying to kind of be like a woodland covered shady area and then a little bit of a valley slash mountain. Did you guys play with any pine straw or anything, Brett? Just curious if any of you guys played with any pine straw. I see that a lot down south in southern landscapes. I have not thus far, but I'm very interested to. You said the forest theme and I was like, oh, pine straw is coming.
00:26:20
Speaker
I love pine straw on anything that likes an acidic soil. So your rhododendron, azaleas, blueberries, things like that. They'll break down and help to keep that soil a little bit more acidic. And they're kind of nice and loose. And the texture is such that I don't have a matting problem. Some of the the the twice ground hardwood mulches, you have to be careful, especially if you go over four inches because you can have this kind of watershed sort of scenario set up. And that's a real issue.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, hydrophobic is the word of the day, folks. But yeah, I love pine straw, Alexis, for that very reason, because I've never had that issue. And I can put it, I can put that down a little, a little heavier. I wouldn't want to, because it's an expensive product here in Kentucky. But it's a great product. Yeah. Is hydrophobic mean you're afraid of fire hydrants? Yes. That'll keep the fire hydrants. Because fire hydrants have water in them. And when your house is burning down, they don't care. They won't come anywhere close.
00:27:17
Speaker
Uh, no, it means they won't wet. If you spray water on them, it just beads and sheets off. Kind of like when you wax your car and you know, the water doesn't, doesn't sheet or it just beads and leaves. It won't soak in anymore. And pond nuggets, that's what makes them last so long. They have natural compounds in them that are water repellent. So they really don't get wet per se. Some of the ones will appear to get more wet that are twice ground nugget that are not the nuggets, but they're still pond bark, but they're double ground.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah, they don't break down as fast because of those chemical compounds in there because they don't really get wet but
00:27:54
Speaker
They do float folks. So just keep in mind my favorite mulch floats away every time into the street. And I can just imagine some thrifty neighbor down there gathering up my beautiful pine nuggets. Don't try to mulch your swimming pool. Don't do this. Yeah. But don't try to make a float out of cypress mulch because it will probably sink because it says specifically on the bags if that's how you're purchasing it. No float.
00:28:20
Speaker
You're gonna make make a boat to try to do like what was that movie with Tom Hanks
00:28:28
Speaker
Castaway. Castaway. Yes. Good. Was Wilson the cypress? Yes. Don't do that. Or palms, you know, which are not trees, I guess. But I digress. So mulches. Yeah. They're not all created the same. Right. Yeah. I'd have to say I'm a fan of kind of the aged and partially composted mulches, the ones that you can pick out by the smell. You know, they've got that kind of like like just a slight hint of like ammonia or nitrogen in the air.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah, they're, I mean, they tend to be darker and kind of hold moisture better. Well, you know, that, that's interesting. I see, I have a couple of folks that I work with and they have limited amounts of it, but it's actually composted material, which is a super premium material. And it has the, you know, has the benefit it's well-composted been through the complete heating.
00:29:15
Speaker
cycle and it's well broken down it's a stable product has minimal nutrients in there but it does have a minor amount of nutrients but it's super stable and it builds the soil in other ways so not only is it a mulch
00:29:29
Speaker
But then it incorporates very easily into the soil as a wonderful amendment later on. Yeah, like a nice little conditioner and like a slow release. Yeah, it's more of a conditioner. I like that. I like that thought for that. Yeah. The folks that I the place we get some mulch from here in town has a 50 50 blend of hardwood and compost actual. Oh, wow.
00:29:50
Speaker
And I like to use that when I'm putting in a new bed that has not been mulched before. And then I typically will, of course, working off soil tests and seeing how things are going and all that kind of fun stuff. But I'll typically then top it off with just like a hardwood mulcher or whatever I'm using in that space afterwards.
00:30:10
Speaker
But it is a really good way to transition from not flower bed or not whatever ornamental bed to something else. Yeah. That sounds like a great product. I mean, I was not aware of that. And it smells. I love, actually love the smell. Some people hate it. Yeah, yeah. It's killer. I do love the smell of compost or just the hardwood mulch is my favorite because my dad worked a lot in a saw mill. And that brings back memories. Love it. Yeah. Before we go any deeper on the organic stuff, Ray, you had mentioned
00:30:40
Speaker
or we had kind of been talking about the zero-scaping, stone, lava rock stuff, and you had just come across some folks in Colorado that had talked a little bit about it, right? Is that... Yeah, you know, that's another common... I guess you could really classify it as organic or inorganic, as some people argue over that, but rocks, that's common landscape material. And folks noticed in colder climates that have longer, harsher winters,
00:31:09
Speaker
have a different take on rock-based mulches. Here in Kentucky, we do have summers that are hot, and we have winters that vary. And a lot of times, we have to be careful with using stone, because it can affect the temperature of soils, and that has all sorts of impacts on the soil health and the drying effects of rock. But what
00:31:34
Speaker
The folks in Colorado and other states that, you know, have these long harsh winters were saying is that they enjoyed using rocks in landscapes because thermally it kept the soil a little, a little warmer into the winter and kept microbes more active for longer. And they were approaching it from a soil health standpoint. They liked rocks.
00:31:56
Speaker
They said it worked well for their cold climates. I had never once considered that. I mean, rocks can, and they even had the size down. They said, well, they recommended, you know, half an inch or so rock or smaller because they like the physical properties of that. And them saying that, you know, there's probably some kind of permeable underlayment that was involved with rocks because they're expensive and they tend to sink into the soil. So.
00:32:19
Speaker
most of them were recommending in that system of using rocks, using an underlayment. But yeah, they enjoyed that property of the soil heating, the heating up the soil. They actually took the benefits of that and applied it into the winter. So a little bit different. Yeah, it was pretty interesting because I've noticed here in Kentucky, you know, sometimes we don't necessarily want the soil to be even warmer in June or July.
00:32:45
Speaker
in Kentucky. We may not necessarily want that. So yeah, different parts of the country take a different approach, especially when it's a research-based approach. Pretty interesting on the rocks. So there's all sorts of mulch. Yeah, lots of different mulches, lots of different reasons. So we've got weed suppression, we've got
00:33:07
Speaker
you know, affecting the soil temperature, whether you want it warmer, colder, more sustained, whatever it is, you can use it as a soil conditioner. You know, you can, I think moisture retention looks good.
00:33:23
Speaker
Yeah, it looks good. I don't know. It looks good. Smells good. Tastes good. What about the organic mulch of newspapers? I want to hear you guys. I can't believe we've not talked about newspapers. I get that all the time. But you said look good. So what about newspapers? How do you guys deal with the aesthetics of newspapers? That's a common mulch with home gardening. I've used cardboard underneath for paint suppression. I've used newspaper too. Have you?
00:33:50
Speaker
Do you weight that down with something? I mean, how do you keep it from like going away? Yeah. Blowing away. A thinner layer of hardwood mulch or a compost if you wanted to do more of a no-till type situation, you're essentially creating that. But, you know, sometimes, I mean, we know mulch can be expensive, especially, you know, the pan seer mulch that you use can be expensive.
00:34:13
Speaker
and so but you need the weed suppression so it has to be a couple inches thick well putting something like newspaper or cardboard down underneath can kind of help to mediate that you know instead of three or four inches you can get away with two to three inches type thing which
00:34:30
Speaker
And a large spacing can make the difference. Huge difference. Yeah. The exponential increase in the amount of mulch over that area. Just adding like a half inch is yeah. And the work too. Yeah. How about that? Were you going to say something? I was going to ask about grass clippings next. I mean, I'm going to know experiences with that, but yeah, more on newspapers.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeah, no, I was gonna, I was, I was just kind of hitting all like going back over all of the things that we've talked about and summarizing that as a whole, because I think that there's a lot of misconceptions about mulch that I think that it's important that we kind of do a little hit on it because
00:35:08
Speaker
and you know ray mulch myths or something yeah mulch myths uh yeah we get a lot of questions on that because we recommend mulch all the time right your trees your shoves your if i can get you to put mulch down in some form or fashion whether it's plastic or hardwood or whatever just know i'm gonna
00:35:26
Speaker
Convince you to put or try and convince you straw something like that. Try and convince you to mulch your plants Because of the we forgot disease resistance you mentioned earlier, you know We have a lot of fungal and bacterial infections for our vegetable gardens and you know All kinds of stuff that over winters in the soil and so it gets onto those leaves to be a soil splash So if you're putting a mulch layer on top of the soil, you don't get soil splash. Therefore you don't get infection and
00:35:53
Speaker
Um on your plants or something just that simple straw straw mulch in your garden. I love using straw for that reason just to limit uh limit rain splash Yeah, yeah straw is the most aesthetically pleasing to me, but it's kind of out there a little bit, you know dried straw
00:36:11
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's something about these carbon-based mulches, these organic mulches we're talking about. And I do love straw. It's one of my favorites. But, you know, it breaks down more rapidly than, let's say, wood chips that you may have gotten free, the larger wood chips. And you may touch on it under mulch myths, I think, a little bit later on. You know, we hear a lot about the nitrogen cycle and how that can possibly affect that. But I'd love to hear more about that under mulch myths. When we get to that point,
00:36:40
Speaker
But they all have this potential, depending on how you use mulches that are carbon-based.
Mulch Misconceptions and Plant Health
00:36:46
Speaker
So there's a little bit of a cautionary tale in there on how you incorporate those in. There's a right and wrong way to use mulch. Do what's that? There's a right and wrong way. Yeah, yeah, there is. Yeah. You say that it makes me like, we have detected carbon-based soybeans. My farms, yes. It's said in your best, like Marvin the Martian. Marvin the Martian. Ooh, yeah, there you go. So let's talk about it.
00:37:18
Speaker
Let's talk about mulch myths because
00:37:24
Speaker
Yeah, one we've already kind of touched on. I mean, so and this is one that would be difficult for me to swallow until I accept that it's true is that if some mulch is good, more is better. That is a myth. There's such thing as too much mulch in terms of thickness. The recommendation. Yeah, the recommendation is, you know, a depth of three inches is
00:37:48
Speaker
sufficient and really what you need. Now, if it's finely ground, that should be something more like two inches is the recommendation. So you don't need to lay a foot of mulch. Like grass clippings. You don't want to even put an inch of grass clippings on there. Yeah. Some mulches. The finer it is, what am I hearing, Josh? The finer it is typically
00:38:10
Speaker
The less you need. Yeah, gotcha. Gotcha. The less thickness. Why is that? Why is it that compression and that watershed is what? Oh, yeah. And too much like is basically it it keeps oxygen and water from getting to the plant roots. It mats down a lot easier. And then then you get roots that are kind of trying to grow into the mulch, which is not what they not where they need to be growing. Yeah. And it's something we kind of touched on with the volcanoes.
00:38:39
Speaker
that creating a volcano, piling mulch against a trunk is not a good idea because it will keep the trunk moist, which makes it more susceptible to decay. Or you've got animals that see that as a food source. Voles are just such a huge problem in orchards. And that's just the deathbell. And an orchard, if you have any kind of organic product up next to the young trees, is voles which are different than moles.
00:39:05
Speaker
They get up there and they would just ring the bark off the tree and that tree is just dead, especially young trees. So, and they love, and they use that as the mulch as a place to hide. They get under there, they hide from predators. So yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Right. Yeah. The recommendation is four inches from the trunk. Yeah. That's where you don't have mulch. What about Alexis? Alexis, you got any myths over there?
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, I want to go back to what Ray was talking about with the nitrogen stealing. Yeah, so I usually actually see this in reverse to kind of what Ray was saying. So I will have people who will come in. They bring me a tomato sample. Tomatoes are classic or corn, tomato or corn in a home garden.
00:39:49
Speaker
Like a plant sample or like a fruit sample? They just bring her a whole tomato. She takes a bite. Too much mulch. I have two enormous tomato plants roots in all sitting in my office right now. So like, you know, it could be anything, but they'll bring me in piece of the plant. They'll send me pictures, something like that. And their tomatoes are very yellow.
00:40:10
Speaker
Or their corn are very yellow and the reason I say tomatoes corn the plant the plant leaves are yellow plant leaves are very So the reason I bring them up is because they are one of the higher nitrogen feeders in a traditional home garden They're going to show signs of nitrogen deficiency aka chlorosis I love that word
00:40:44
Speaker
And I tend to, you know, I say first, did you get a soil test? And usually the answer is no. No. And then I asked them, you know, have they been fertilizing?
00:40:53
Speaker
usually the answer is yes because they're like why isn't my plant you know producing tomatoes or corn and they're super yellow what's going on and then you know I you know we'll do a site visit or I figure out there's a lot of mulch around the area
00:41:09
Speaker
And now mulch, like we've talked about, is great. We want mulch on the surface of our soil, right? The surface is great. Nitrogen does not move up against gravity into said mulch. What I have found is that a lot of time those people are tilling in their mulch from year to year. They maybe have had access to sawdust because they do a lot of woodworking or some sort of hardwood
00:41:38
Speaker
Mulch which is heavily carbon-based and they're healing that in because they're like it's an organic material I can till it in while yes that is true and yes over time that will Break down and condition your soil in order to get it broken down microbes have to use a lot of nitrogen to break down that carbon which then becomes nitrogen and
00:41:59
Speaker
in the future and so what those microbes will do is will steal the available nitrogen you're trying to give your plants to then break down those heavy carbon wood-based mulches and so
00:42:10
Speaker
You know, I always tell people if you want or if you've accidentally done that already and you're like, oh crap, uh, that explains so much. Clarissa explains it all. Um, that you will have to essentially over for over fertilized with some nitrogen usually is what that means. And so, um, you know, get that soil test temporary, usually just for a year, just for a season.
00:42:34
Speaker
And then you can go back to doing kind of what your soil sample said. So that's kind of a similar thing with incorporating cover crops into your soil can cause crop if they have a woodiness to them.
00:42:48
Speaker
Yes. Over mature. Hot carbon content. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're incorporating buckwheat, buckwheats, you know, very flex, fleshy and vegetative, juicy, fine. I won't say fleshy on the punch. You just did. Too late. Too wise. Interesting. Yes. It breaks down very quickly. On that carbon nitrogen thing, an interesting parallel, if in case folks aren't familiar with that.
00:43:15
Speaker
If you ever have had a compost pile or learned about composting and they talk about having the right balance of brown materials and green materials in this scenario in the soil, your brown materials or your carbon, the green materials tend to be your nitrogen. And so if you have more, too much of one or too much of the other, it can get either stinky or it won't go anywhere. It'll get real dry or whatever.
00:43:36
Speaker
It's a similar thing. And so when you till stuff in like that, you're essentially creating a little similar reaction to the compost pile where these things are interacting. And the problem is it's taking that green material, that nitrogen out and not making it available to plants a little parallel for those. Right. In the long run, it's great. Just like Brett said earlier, but the coarser it is, I mean, like there's a big difference between like free wood chips that you get from local chipping operations.
00:44:03
Speaker
There's a big difference between that and sawdust. Both could potentially cause problems if you incorporate them into the soil, but it's going to take those wood chips a lot longer because they're larger and the microbes have less surface area to work on. So just keep that in mind. If you incorporate wood chips into soil, my goodness, you could have issues for more than one growing season, probably two to three growing seasons.
00:44:27
Speaker
sawdust it depends on the amount but yeah it all depends on the the size of particles that the microbes can break down but you know as long as you don't incorporate it you're saying you don't have that same worry if you're spreading them on the swill surface no is that what Alexis if they go on the surface they have minimal impact
00:44:45
Speaker
That's the take home messages. Don't incorporate them into the soil, leave them on the top. Great summary. Great summary, yeah. Don't do that. If you want to plant it back in that area, then just rake back where you want to plant it. Yes, absolutely. Rake back the mulch and then put it back once you move it. Right. That's another, yeah, go ahead. I have to say, what about termites? Who gets termite questions? I can't mulch around my house, around my tree, because they're going to give me some termites.
00:45:11
Speaker
termites are not yeah it's one of them east texas people that lives in Boyle County termites are not attracted to mulch especially things like pine bark and cypress they're the least attractive termites are much prefer better quality wood like stuff construction materials they will eat
00:45:33
Speaker
You might find them on a mulch if they're already present, but they aren't going to be attracted to your house by mulch.
00:45:45
Speaker
And that's another good reason to not like Powell mulch up beyond three to four inches, because, uh, more than anything termites to me is about moisture and they follow the moisture more than anything. So you have to be careful. And so the, um, the mulch could keep your house framing wet, which is then going to attract the attract termites. And that's something we don't think about a lot is it's more of a moisture thing than it is a food source thing. Like Josh said, it's not because if you think of a termite, they're looking for, you know,
00:46:13
Speaker
monolithic blocks of, you know, food. That's their natural way. And they can dig their nice little galleries into mulch has got all these exposed areas where their bodies dry out very quickly. If it's a loose mulch at the proper depth, it's those thicker types of mulch you have to watch. And even then, it's more related to more moisture than it is a food source. So just keep that in mind for what that's worth. Yeah. Yeah. Any other myths for us?
00:46:40
Speaker
Uh, I think we might have, uh, fresh mulch every year. No, you don't. No, you do not. As someone who said to mulch every year in certain places, you do not need to do that. What's the, what's the deal? What's the. Depends on the mouth. Yeah. Basically you're checking it to see if it's completely broken down.
00:47:04
Speaker
And, you know, is that you're checking the depth of the mulch and maybe bringing it back up. To me, it's one of the things that sucks about having like really good microbially active soil is that you have to mulch more often. Yes. Like the first round of mulch that I put on an area that's like clay and gross. It lasts a long time, but then it's like after a couple of years of like giving it what it needs. Yeah, you've got microbes working on it. It's like, I'm hungry. Give me more mulch. You're mulching with a compost blend.
00:47:31
Speaker
or a halfway composted wood mulch, which is what I use, then obviously that's gonna degrade faster. So yes, you may be adding, it's possible that you could be adding to it every year depending on where it's located and what it's made of. But most likely, I usually tell people every two years and only if it looks bad. And then you just bring it up. Just like with pesticide application or with,
00:47:59
Speaker
fertilization or whatever, you need to be acting on actual feedback and actual information, not just... Therapeutic mulching, not so therapeutic. If you have to look for it, you can write it and fluff it up. And there is actually mulch colorant that you can get if you wanted to have that nice dark color.
00:48:16
Speaker
to spray over the top of re-fluffed mulch. So that's two things you can do. You can re-fluff like a hardwood mulch, and then you can spray fresh colorant over the top water-based colorant. It's designed for that purpose, so you can do those two things, and that keeps you, hopefully, from stacking mulch on top of mulch and getting to that six to eight-inch layer of mulch that causes problems. So between those two things, re-fluffing, that'll make something like a cypress look nice and fresh, and it will hardwood as well.
00:48:43
Speaker
But if you want the color, then you can add that. So those two things will maybe help you out and help you resist that urge of just kind of stacking mulch. And if you really, really have to jump in and do it, you can remove the old mulch. If it is rot resistant mulch, like I've ran into cedar mulch, it just doesn't break down. It's rare, but I ran into mulch sources like that. You can remove it from your bed and then put more mulch in there. It takes an extra bit of effort because you're removing and then putting fresh mulch in. So yeah.
00:49:12
Speaker
I think something too, like if you've, if your experience with mulches, mostly just getting bags from the home center or whatever, which I've done plenty of that myself. If you're going to do a big mulching project, look into having some delivered, even if you have a truck, obviously go and get some scoops in the back. But if you don't, we had not had a truck for a long time.
00:49:32
Speaker
can look into having it delivered and just price it out there. It's not a scary thing. They do it to home for homeowners all the time, but it can often often be less expensive. There's no way there's zero total bags, you know, plastic bags that are involved in that process. It can be easier to just shovel it depends sometimes carrying the bags is a lot easier. But
00:49:52
Speaker
Just something I would say is if you haven't looked into that before because it was you know You thought it was beyond that they'll deliver even small amounts often landscape companies will piggybacking onto that concept if you're gonna do that a common question we get is well How much how do I know how much mulch I need? There are all kinds of good calculators and apps out there There's online web-based calculators and apps that you just put in your area roughly length by width
00:50:18
Speaker
and how deep you want the mulch and the material, and it will calculate how many cubic square feet or whatever.
Mulch Tools and Aesthetics
00:50:23
Speaker
However you're buying it by the yard or by that square foot, whichever volume, it's very easy to calculate that. So look up an app or get on a website, do a basic search. And those tools all use the same numbers in general. And they're all very good. So it's easy to calculate how much mulch you need.
00:50:41
Speaker
I saw this really cool thing on a social media platform. I say it that way because Josh is judging me as we speak. I wasn't even paying attention. Whatever. You rolled his eyes. You rolled his eyes. This was one of those things where you're just like, have I been just in the dark and dumb my whole life?
00:51:03
Speaker
so if you if you do have a truck or a trailer if you are the person going to get the mulch and you're getting it scooped into your truck trailer whatever people
00:51:14
Speaker
take like totes, like big plastic totes, or like five gallon buckets, anything that would hold mulch in it. And you stack those in your, like the bed of your truck, side by side. Like a honeycomb pattern. Like a honeycomb pattern. You just push everything together, and then they dump the mulch into the back of the truck into those containers.
00:51:36
Speaker
And then you can just carry that container like Brett was saying, like, it's sometimes easier to carry the bag. You just carry that container to wherever, you know, you need it. Like minimal, you know, sweeping out of the back of the truck or the trailer. And I was like, how have I been so?
00:51:54
Speaker
Where has this post been all my life? Where has this been? Who has been gatekeeping this idea my entire existence? I worked, I don't know how many mulch jobs I have done in my lifetime and my career as a horticulturist, but I can tell you that that would have changed the game. Definitely. So my first memories of landscaping was my mother having, you know, multiple cubic yards of mulch delivered to the front of the house and
00:52:24
Speaker
Yep, loading up a wheelbarrow, taking it back, loading it, and that was just the rest of my life. I mean, if you want to feel... They would have dumped it in the back, but she was specifically... He needs something to do. The real feeling of power is when, you know, if you've ever messed around commercial landscaping much, we used to have this big mulch blower, and that's a feeling of power to where it's like a big 10, 12 inch kind of...
00:52:49
Speaker
It looks like a reverse vacuum, and it just blows like this hardwood. Yeah. You could put down a quarter acre of mulch, and two people can in, I don't know, two hours. It's insane. It just blows the mulch in very evenly. Here's a little bonus factoid. In the bonsai world, we actually use a version of mulch. They call it top dressing. It's a very common application of a blend of local moss and sphagnum moss that will eventually grow into a small mat.
00:53:19
Speaker
of uh mossy mulch on the top of the bonsai pot because it's such a shallow you know dry down environment it helps to keep it a little bit uh cool and moist probably looks really cool too does it looks really nice cool yeah i think i know what you're talking about and it does look really cool it does yeah very natural like so for competitions they'll actually put little
00:53:41
Speaker
chunks of real like of moss like onto the surface and like stitched together into this like mossy mat that looks very it looks very hobbit like a bonsai competition you say yes
00:53:58
Speaker
Nothing chills me out like competing at the highest international level. And you guys thought the world of mulch in this discussion was going to be boring. No, says I. No way. It's the height of sophistication and culture. It is.
00:54:16
Speaker
Honestly, I don't understand dyed mulch. You dyed mulch people. I think you're on a whole different plane than the rest of us. But, you know, yeah, it's weird to me. There it is. And it feels like you can tell a lot about a person by the color of their mulch. I'm just going to say it. I feel like we could have a whole thing. Shots fired across the bow. Well, I use three different tops in one bed. So there you go. I'm Polly mulches.
00:54:43
Speaker
Neapolitan One of those words But anyways, so we mulch is a good thing if you do it correctly and usually correctly just essentially means leave it on the top of the soil and It's frosting, you know, it's frosting. Yeah, and you can eat it
00:55:11
Speaker
If you injected frosting into the cake that would be also awesome, so maybe Maybe it's not the same. Yeah, maybe it's different Right. I mean I can't be like
00:55:24
Speaker
Twinkies. There's layers of frosting between the layers. What if it's like a frosted cookie? Because you can't inject it in the middle of a cookie. That's true. It sprinkles. It sprinkles. Regardless, keep your mulch on the soil surface and you won't have that. Do whatever you want with your cookies and cakes, but leave the mulch on the top.
00:55:46
Speaker
And we'll go over three inches.
Connecting with the Audience and Conclusion
00:55:50
Speaker
And if you want to know more about mulch, contact your local county extension office. If you are in Kentucky, you have a county extension office. If you are outside of Kentucky, you still have an extension office. It just might not be in your county. And I am sorry for you. You do have a land grant university you could talk to about this. Or you can email us.
00:56:14
Speaker
at wherever you are, please feel free to email us. We are here to help you and the extension world. You can email us at hortculturepodcast at l.uky.edu. That's in the show notes for those of you who are like, I am driving my car and I am not. It's hard to write while I'm changing lanes.
00:56:36
Speaker
It will be in the show notes. You can also follow us and you can shoot us a message there or a comment at Hort Culture podcast on Instagram. Thank you. On Instagram, we would love if you would leave us a review that helps other people be able to find us.
00:56:56
Speaker
So we hope that you are having a good experience and you will leave a good review. That would be ideal. So please do that. Tell your friends, share it around, follow us wherever you want. Tell us about cool new things you want to hear about. If you liked the Mulch podcast, let us know. And if you want to know more about
00:57:16
Speaker
I don't know, living mulches. If you, something in this episode struck your fancy or made you think about something else. You know, if you want to know more about bonsai, we can, we can talk about it. All right. Just let us know kind of what you're into. We're just kind of going off of all the cool things that we really like to talk about. And I want to say it's every, there's been a lot of people who have reached out and given and said that they enjoy this or they, you know, laughed at something or learned something or whatever.
00:57:40
Speaker
And it really means a lot. We really appreciate the people who are listening and letting us know and really glad because it's really fun. If you can't tell, we have a pretty good time doing this together. And so thank you so much to everybody who's.
00:57:53
Speaker
Shout out to Lewis, who told me yesterday that he also puts his Japanese beetles on pikes. So shout out to him. Couple of normal people out there. You're going to start a club, and it's going to be real weird. It's going in a different direction than I was going to. I feel good, Bob. And also,
00:58:15
Speaker
I will add we have talked about and we haven't discussed it today or recently but maybe sometime in the future we will talk more about as a you know hosting group of adding video if anyone would want the
00:58:27
Speaker
you know, have any interest in seeing a video portion of this podcast being added on a platform such as YouTube. Please leave that feedback. That's something that we that's within the possibility of us doing, but we just need to know if that's something you as the listeners would be interested in. That way you could see all of the wonderful gestures and shenanigans that we do on our end.
00:58:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot. So let us know. Let us know. It's one of our previous episodes. Yeah. Yes. You miss a lot. You miss a lot when you don't see the videos. The cat's name was Squee. Squee. Squee. All right. Well, anyways, we're going to wrap this up. Thank you all for being here with us today. We hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us and join us next week. We're going to be finishing up more about our cut flower month. So thank you guys so much and we'll talk soon.