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DO you need to add compost if you have bark chippings on garden bed

mawallace44mawallace44 Posts: 60
in Problem solving
Our garden bed has bark chippings as mulch. We use liquid fertilizer every couple of weeks. It's been suggested that I need to remove the chippings in the autumn and then add compost  - is this right? or can I add compost when I am replanting the bedding plants by putting some in their hole each time?

Posts

  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    I'm a huge fan of mulching. I'd just lay it on top.
    Devon.
  • mawallace44mawallace44 Posts: 60
    edited July 2020
    You mean add the compost on top of the bark? and how much to add - an inch of compost such as manure?
  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,618
    If you are going to use well rotted farm yard manure, but like the look of bark, then you will have to scrape back the bark, add the manure, then put the bark on top. Bark takes a lot longer to rot and provides little nutrition to the plants. Worms will take the compost or manure down into the soil.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    The bark mulch is, presumably, meant to be decorative and cut down weed growth.   If you want to feed the soil in the whole bed you need to rake off the bark, spread the compost mulch and then, after rain, put the bark back so you seal in moisture rather than dryness.   You can also just scrape back the bark to make new planting holes and add some compost to the soil when you backfill each planting hole.   Water well and replace the bark.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
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  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    I would add a little compost to the planting holes than go through the rigmarole of lifting the bark mulch and replacing it. The bark itself will slowly break down and also add organic matter to the soil. Organic matter isn't a nutrient in and of itself, but it allows nutrients to be held longer within the soil, in a form which is accessible to roots.

    Bark mulch is really more suited to static plantings IMO (around trees and shrubs or 'car park groundcover') than somewhere you are going in and changing bedding plants or dividing perennials etc. I would be more inclined to use mulches of compost or soil conditioner (like this) where it's going to get mixed in with the soil. You have to top up this sort of mulch more often, but it does the soil a lot of good.
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
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