Mulch: Mimicry or Murder?
Beginning gardeners often kill their beloved new plants by accident, through the best of intentions, sometimes simply by overdoing. For instance, if the radio garden talk show host, or the reference book, or the magazine article says "Mulch!" then the new gardener understands that mulching is an important "must-do" kind of a thing and taking things to a logical conclusion, piles it on good and thick thinking more is better so why not be generous?
The finer points of mulching will go unnoticed in the overall noise of information overload. Mulching by the book is like trying to learn to scramble an egg and make an omelette by reading step by step instructions. That maddening "cook till done" phrase keeps reappearing. How totally un-helpful!
New gardeners have too much to learn too fast. It is like running before you can walk and of course we are always impatient and want everything all at once, forgetting that nature takes her time. In nature, things tend to work gradually. And of course, nature never read a book. Nature learns by doing.
To continue with mulching, since that is something new gardeners often have trouble with, let's consider how nature mulches. Each fall, deciduous plants drop their leaves, the leaves rot down slowly where they land. Herbaceous plants collapse and the stems rot around the crown of the plant. The wind blows stray bits and twigs and extra leaf litter and these may catch and stick in the crown of a plant. These materials will create a little buffer between the cold winter air and the ground where the roots are. This is sort of a natural mulching system. Snow makes a natural insulation layer, too.
Now think of the soil in the woods, soft and spongy, maybe a few identifiable leaves and twigs near the surface, but mostly crumbly brown stuff underneath. But last autumn, the leaves were thick on the ground. The forest drops all those leaves, mulches itself, and the mulch in turn rots and adds back to the soil gradually each year.
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