Mulching tips to help you save water

Summer and hotter temperatures are finally upon us, and we aren’t the only ones feeling the heat – your garden will be suffering as well. But rather than increasing the amount of water you feed your garden, there are other ways to help it survive through the warmer months.

One of the first things you should do is add mulch to your garden. Adding mulch can help preserve moisture in the soil, which reduces the amount of water you will need to use.

According to Sustainable Gardening Australia, mulch performs a variety of other functions in the garden as well:

• Reduces moisture loss from the soil surface, thus aiding plant growth, and reducing the need to water. It also lessens the chance of the soil surface drying out and cracking.
• Suppresses weed growth, which reduces competition for water and nutrients, and decreases the amount of ‘weeding time’ the gardener has to put into maintenance.
• Many types of mulch add nutrients to the soil when broken down, and improve soil structure.
• Mulching also reduces run-off and soil movement from garden beds.

Here are a few tips from Sustainable Gardening Australia on how to mulch your garden:

• Remove or poison weeds (then wait for a fortnight after using poison)
• Moisten the soil thoroughly. Ensure that the water you apply is penetrating .
• If the water is running off the surface, fork through some compost to aid with the water retention.
• If you are planting into the soil, add some compost into the planting hole.
• If you are using bark-based mulches, you might consider sprinkling some blood and bone over the soil. This extra nitrogen will compensate for any nitrogen being taken up by the gradual decomposition of the mulch.
• Lay your mulch thickly (7-8cm deep), keeping the area directly around plants free of mulch.
• Lastly sprinkle soil wetting agents over the surface. This will ensure that any watering doesn’t run off the surface of the mulch.

Following these steps will mean you have mulched well.

How often?

Over time organic mulches break down, contributing beneficially to soil structure. Fine mulches will break down quicker than more coarse materials and so will need topping up more often. A yearly top up is usually enough.

The length of time that it takes for a mulch to break down determines how rapidly the plants will be able to access the nutrients in the mulch. Some mulches as they break down may actually take nutrients away from the soil, this effect is only shot-term but in these instances it may be necessary to add manure or blood and bone prior to mulching.