I’m notorious for not mulching. I’m so notorious that people now come to me and say, “Please help. My husband wants me to mulch. Talk him out of it.”
So, with the thought that a picture is worth 1,000 words, here are a few photos.
All of these photos were taken from our gardens at work where our landscaper used high quality pine bark mulch. This is some unspecified fungus on the mulch. It’s a slime mold that one the water hit it, has broken open to release its spores. Fuligo septica is the botanical name for this one. Just plain ugly is what it really is!
Here’s some of the fungus that affectionately goes by the name “dog vomit.” Mind you, we’re in a drought situation so it’s not as if the mulch is moist.
Here are some mushrooms coming up.
And for those of you who think that mulch keeps weeds at bay? Sorry, not so much. Here’s the evidence.
So if I’m going to have to weed anyway, I’d just as soon not have to do it around all the extra fungus in the garden. But that’s just me. As I always say, if we all liked the same thing, we’d have a very boring world!
You are definitely now preaching to the choir — I said the exact same thing the other day when surveying the weeds coming up through the new mulch, and also fungal growths. So basically I threw $$$ away. This was my first and last foray into mulching!
Oh I’m sorry. I was hoping that other folks would have different experiences. Sorry that it wasn’t nearly as helpful as you needed it to be!
Karla
I use cedar have had no such problems. never use pine bark. doesnt break down as fast andmakes your soil to acidic, so I have been told. my biggest problems is when the leaves fall in the fall, they create organic material in between the mulch for weeds and such. but I figure this year I will use my shop vac to get those leaves up to reduce the dirt to make weeds hard to root and easier to pull. I get minimal suck up of the mulch whenI vacumme I just need to let the lighter leaves get sucked up by not getting to close to the mulch.
mulch helps hide hte weed block and makes it prettier too. and of course it reduces weeding tremondously.
Roberta, thank you! Yours is exactly the sort of comment I was hoping for!
I always mulched with cedar myself on the extremely rare occasions when I have mulched but my experiences are entirely different, needless to say. It’s clearly my heavy, wet clay soil that I’m mulching over.
So glad it’s working for you!
Karla