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Can we talk about how mulch is NOT the answer for everything?
I used to be all in on mulch like everyone else until I volunteered at the Norfolk Botanical Garden last April and watched a master gardener pull back 3 inches of it to show me the soggy, rotting crown of a 20 year old rhododendron. She said half the plants people bring in for "disease" are actually just smothered. Now I leave bare soil rings around my shrubs and my plants look better than they have in years. Anyone else ditch the mulch pile and see a real difference?
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the_diana1mo ago
Watched a neighbor do the exact same thing last summer and it blew my mind. I was the guy with a perfect 4 inch ring of bark around every bush, felt proud of it even, then her hydrangeas started yellowing and dropping leaves and she pulled the mulch back to find roots growing UP into it like they were trying to escape. That was the moment it clicked for me, roots need air and mulch was basically a wet blanket sitting on top of them. I still use a thin layer in my veggie beds to keep weeds down but around shrubs and trees I go bare now, just let the soil breathe. My soil actually stays damper underneath without it because the roots aren't drowning, which sounds backwards but it's true. Never going back to the mulch mountain look.
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