Forum home› Problem solving
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

mulching

william12william12 Posts: 7
in Problem solving
Iam clearing two small areas .Ihave cardboard ,compost and woodchip Thinking of putting alayer of compost then cardboard then woodchip .Ialso have some chipped bark.Need to know is this right.














Posts

  • nick615nick615 Posts: 1,487
    william12, the experts would normally have replied by now but, if you're trying to suppress weeds while feeding the ground, I'd say you're pretty much spot on?  Normal worm etc. activity will deal with the compost while protected by the cardboard and the other two commodities can only improve the soil as they rot in.  As proprietary compost is said to be limited as to how long it remains effective (as I've read on here) any further source of nutrition, such as manure, that you could add to/mix with the compost before laying the cardboard down would improve the over wintering effect in readiness for spring.  Obviously anchor the cardboard down with stones/bricks etc.
  • william12william12 Posts: 7
    Many thanks Nick 615.
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    It depends on what you want to achieve. Are you planning to replant the area with shrubs or trees; ornamentals; veg; grass? How soon? If your aim is to improve the soil you would do well to dig in compost - not planting compost, but muck, which you have made yourself or bought in. To supress weeds, some people put down a layer of cardboard. It looks awful but it does the job. The woodchip is a matter of debate. It takes years to rot down and some gardeners believe it takes more out of the soil than it puts in, although it is popular as an ornamental mulch. I find the local wildlife soon distribute it about the garden, making a great mess.
    So, have a think about what you want the end product to be and how much you care about the appearance.
  • parrotfeather*parrotfeather* Posts: 188
    I am interested to hear Posy's view on the woodchip.  We had to take down three very large Poplar trees and had a vast quantity of woodchip.  I left this for about six months in large heaps to compost down and was pleased with the resulting mulch which proved very useful and full of worms.  It has actually been of great value in the borders, as a weed suppressant and soil improver.  Although there is some nitrogen loss initially I think that is compensated for by the release of nutrients once it has rotted down...if the woodchip is added on top of the cardboard it should be quite well composted before it makes close contact with the soil.  The only caveat I would add is that woodchip varies tremendously according to which trees it comes from.  Our Poplars were organically grown and healthy and although technically a hardwood, Poplar rots down quickly.  A mulch from conifers, by comparison, would be very acidic and some hardwoods might take a lot longer to rot down.
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    Wow, I'm impressed! I reckon on 3+ years to get wood chip completely broken down. What did you do to it?
  • parrotfeather*parrotfeather* Posts: 188
    I just built some very big heaps;  there was a lot of heat from them.  It really is good stuff as I actually used some of it in a Garden Organic trial of various mulches for onion sets and the onion crop with the woodchip mulch was better than all the others (a control plot, Mypex fabric, corn starch fabric and grey paper mulch).  As I said before, it may well be just that Poplar breaks down more quickly than wood such as Oak.  Certainly the moisture meter shows that the logs are dry enough for burning after only a year when with something like Beech or Oak I would expect to wait at least a couple of years.
Sign In or Register to comment.