Black Mulch
Evaluating Black Mulch
Of all the kinds of mulch, black mulch will have the greatest effect on your garden. Nothing beats a black background for bringing out the duller colored flowers and plants. Before you start using black mulch, however, you should be aware of the drawbacks to this kind of covering.
Nutritional Deficiencies
Black mulch looks good, but it is not the most nutritionally rich kind of mulch. You will want to make sure you use good fertilizer and add other forms of necessary plant nutrients under the black mulch carpeting. Do not expect these darker forms of mulch to help your plants grow. Therefore, if nutrition is your main concern in buying a type of mulch, you will want to look elsewhere.
Pressurized Wood
Some companies make mulch from pressurized wood. You should avoid these mulches not only because they tend to have even fewer nutrients than other kinds of dark mulch materials, but also because the process of pressurizing itself is bad for the environment and more likely to trap chemicals that are unhealthy both for your garden and you.
Bleeding
One of the central problems when it comes to darker colored mulches is that the dyes companies use to make them can bleed into the ground with moisture or when after a hard warm summer the dried wood bits in the mulch begin to lose their ability to retain the dyes. This is not only an aesthetic problem, but also a question of health. Many of the dyes mulch producers employ when making mulch and dyeing it are harmful to the health of plants. The rain rinses these harmful dyes right into the soil that feeds your roses and tomatoes.
Even worse, some companies treat their mulch with Chromated Copper Arsenate—a type of arsenic. This type of mulch will not only poison your plants but any other creature that mixes with it. Therefore, you want to beware to avoid any mulch treated with these kinds of chemicals.
The best way to avoid this difficulty is to buy mulches locally from organic mulch producers or to make your mulch from a felled and chipped tree from your own property. Nutritionally and environmentally speaking, these natural kinds of mulches made from local sources are the best for you and your garden. In some cases, this may also turn out to be the least expensive as well.
Aesthetic Difficulties of Black Mulch
Yet another difficulty inherent in darker dyed mulches has to do with the aesthetic appearance over time. Although nothing beats black mulch’s appearance when first laid, over time the sun and the rain take their toll. No matter how good the mulch, the sun will slowly fade it from black to gray or worse. Often this will happen unevenly, providing a clear sense of the fading to even the casual viewer. Even worse, some of the less well-manufactured mulches also stain from watering.
Tips for Laying Mulch
Given the aesthetic problems with fading, the key to laying mulch is to try to keep it out open spaces where it will receive a great deal of direct sunlight. Often if you place it directly in the bed under the plants you are trying to highlight, the plants themselves will take on the secondary role as mulch shades. Otherwise, your best bet for the darker mulches is to place them under the canopy shading of the arching boughs of an old reliable tree.
Remember that darker mulches are best for flowers that need a bit of help bringing out their colors. A sunny flower with vibrant colors doesn’t really need darker mulch to help highlight its aesthetic beauty. In fact, many of us in the gardening world find it a little tacky to over-emphasize a flower whose natural beauty should be enough to carry the day. In the gardening world, we consider this a sign of insecurity—like a beautiful model who feels he or she always has to dress provocatively to insure the attention of every passerby.