Very simple testament to the power of mulch for your plants:
Tree on the left has no mulch under it. It even sits in a low spot in the yard where all the rain runoff travels.
Tree on the right I blew all the grass clippings under with the lawnmower a couple months ago, so it has a nice, thick layer of mulch under it.
In our part of Missouri, we’ve had little to no rain for over a month and a half now. My neighbor’s oaks were showing signs of oak wilt when we moved in here a year ago, now they’re disappearing like seedlings in a rabbit’s garden buffet. Half the trees in our neighborhood are dropping leaves and going dormant. It looks like November on the ground already. The dogs send puffs of dust flying every time they run. Our water bill that normally runs $30 a month was $142 last month. I wouldn’t even want to see the neighbor up the hill- who have the only green yard in our subdivision and run their impact sprinklers at least 10 hours a day from dawn to dusk every single day.
The only real blessing is I haven’t had to listen to lawn mowers all around us every weekend… but it’s been replaced by the sound of chainsaws cutting down dying trees and clouds of dust from stump grinding. I think I preferred the lawn mowers. 😦
So anyway, moral of this story is, MULCH YOUR PLANTS. If you can’t deal with the messy way it looks, then put landscaping around them, like the plastic yard dividers, landscaping bricks, rock, etc. and put the mulch inside that contained area. But mulch your plants. It doesn’t just conserve water. It keeps the roots cooler in the heat, it protects the plant from the brutality of the sun beating down on it. It keeps the soil from compacting and allows air exchange and microorganisms to enrich your soil. It attracts earthworms and it breaks down over time, building topsoil, creating nutrients and feeding your plants. It keeps the weeds down. (Anything that cuts down on my weed eating time is a good thing!)
My neighbor hates mulch. He wrinkled his nose at me last fall when he came over and asked me if I’d like him to vacuum up all the weeds and grass clippings- and I told him, “No thanks, I’ll chop them up and use them for mulch.” I was dumping bags of them around my trees when he stopped by. His granddaughter said, “What’s mulch?” He pointed to what I was doing and said, “That.” He was absolutely disgusted. He mows and uses Round Up at the base of all his trees to make nice, neat little clean rings under them with no weeds. He wants his yard to look like a city park.
His trees are the ones being cut down now because they’re dying.
-B
Belle of Dirt 