When you’re caring for the trees and plants in your landscaping, you want them to be at their healthiest. A great way to ensure the health of your landscape is by adding a layer of mulch around your trees and flower beds.
The benefits of mulch are an essential way to keep your plants healthy and thriving. One kind of mulch that’s popular to use is hardwood mulch. There is a lot to be gained from wood mulch, and the experts at Creech Landscape want to provide you with insight into what hardwood mulch is and how it can help your plants this season.
What is Hardwood Mulch?
Mulch in general is a loose type of material used to create a protective layer over your soil. The mixture consists of rubber, grass clippings, pine needles, straw, and other kinds of materials. Hardwood mulch specifically is made of wood and can come as wood chips or shredded wood, which can be made from various types of wood.
Types of Mulch
Even within the realm of hardwood mulch, there are multiple types, and each has their own set of advantages to them. Here are a few types:
- Shredded Hardwood: Thinner pieces of hardwood that work well for sloped surfaces
- Pine: A very lightweight wood that provides nutrients when it decomposes
- Cedar: An aromatic wood that repels insects such as termites
- Dyed Hardwood: Wood dyed with iron oxide or other natural dyes to look striking while feeding the soil
Hardwood mulch has unique benefits that other types of mulch don’t offer. It’s important to remember these qualities when deciding what will best support your landscape.
Temperature Regulation
Weather can be unpredictable at times, which isn’t healthy for your plants if they’re sensitive to extreme temperature changes. Hardwood mulch acts as an insulator for your plants and can help to regulate the soil temperature. During the high heat of the summer, it can keep the soil cool, and in the middle of winter, it can trap heat within the soil to keep it warm. This reduces the concern that comes with heat waves and cold snaps, providing you more peace of mind as the seasons change.
Moisture Regulation
Just as it can regulate temperature, hardwood mulch can also regulate the moisture in the soil. With a layer of mulch, it prevents water from evaporating easily. This reduces the frequency that you need to water your plants and decreases the chance for trees and other plants to become drought stressed. At the same time, the large pieces of wood that the mulch is made of allow air to flow through it, preventing moisture from getting trapped long enough to promote the growth of mold or fungi.
Beneficial to Soil Health
Since wood mulches are made of organic material, they can slowly improve the soil around your landscape. Over time, wood breaks down naturally and decays, giving its nutrients to the soil. It’s an easy and natural way to enrich your soil without the need for fertilizer. Once the soil is rich from the wood decomposing, it can provide beneficial nutrients to the plants around it, strengthening plant roots and improving overall plant growth.
Weed Suppression
Weeds are notorious for competing with your plants for nutrients, and it’s important to control them before they get out of hand. Adding a layer of mulch is a quick way to suppress weeds, though, and stop them long before they grow. Wood chips or shredded wood block sunlight from weeds, helping to suffocate them and stop their growth from the soil.
Improved Water Flow
Mulches that are finely shredded can pose a problem for water flow. They can eventually clump together and keep water from properly reaching your plant roots. Wood mulches with large chips or thick shreds allow water to reach plant roots by creating a porous layer, instead of blocking moisture. This makes it much easier to water your plants.
Erosion Prevention
Wood mulches absorb water well when there’s heavy rainfall or excess watering, preventing the water from washing away the soil. Mulch is helpful for places with soil erosion or slopes. It prevents erosion by acting as a barrier. This keeps your landscape from developing wet spots and keeps soil runoff out of local storm drains.
Damage Protection
While it’s important to mow your lawn and trim for weeds, landscaping equipment can be potentially damaging to your trees. Since wood mulch helps to suppress weeds and unwanted plant growth, it reduces the need to trim or mow too close to the trunk. This can prevent your trees from getting damaged and risking their health.
Environmentally Friendly
With its ability to regulate moisture and improve soil health, hardwood mulch is a sustainable and environmentally friendly material. It reduces the need for excess water and inorganic treatments to your soil, and it is readily available for use. It reduces waste and adds nutrients, helping both the plants it protects and the surrounding ecosystem.
Visual Appeal
Wood mulches are significantly useful to your landscape in a practical way, but they also provide curb appeal. They can add beauty and contrast to a green yard, creating neat and appealing areas around your trees and flowers. When it’s regularly refreshed over time, it can keep your landscape looking nice year-round.
Quality Mulch Installation by Creech Landscape
Maintaining the health and the appearance of your landscaping is important, and at Creech landscape, we value that as well. To keep your trees and beds protected and enriched, we offer mulch installation services you can trust. We carry premium triple ground hardwood mulch, which offers the protection and the nutrients your plants need to remain healthy. Contact us today to receive a quote, or to schedule a service with us. We look forward to serving you!
