How to Keep Mulch from Blowing Away

Keeping the mulch in place in your garden is the key to having a well-kept garden. Weather like wind, rain, and foot traffic can cause the mulch to drift away from your garden beds, especially the loose-textured mulch.

During strong winds and heavy rains, some type of mulch has a hard time staying in place. However, there are a few simple ways you can keep it in place and keep up its nice appeal.

One of these ways includes edging your flower bed or garden with something high enough to hold the mulch in place even during a storm. You can edge using plants that you plant closely together like monkey grass that makes a great border to hold the mulch. Landscaping edging using plastic, wood, metal or stones, or pine straw edging that is afoot wide to help catch floating nuggets of mulch. You can also dig a small trench about 4 inches deep around the edges of your garden to catch washed-out mulch or make multiple layers of mulch around the edges of the bed to form a low barrier.

How to keep your garden mulch in place

Choose the right mulch

The type of mulch you use on your garden bed affects how it’s blown away from your garden bed. Lightweight chunky mulch is very difficult to keep in place, but heavier, finer mulch is easier to keep in place.

Different types of mulch for your garden bed

Mulch

Composition

How it stays in place

Pea gravel mulch

Heavier rock-type mulch

Course type of mulch that is heavy enough to stay in place

Shredded wood mulch

Shredded wood and bark

The fibers are thin and long which allows than to stay down and bond with each other

Pine straw mulch

Pine needles

The pine needles intertwine  which helps them to stay put

Homemade compost

Fine organic mulch

Lightweight and fine in texture that forms an internal fabric to the mulch with time

  • Skip or remove landscape fabric

Avoid putting landscape fabric underneath your mulch if you have a sloppy garden. It creates a slippery surface that makes the mulch to side out of the bed.

Use multiple thin layers of mulch and water them to keep it compact to prevent weeds.

  • Flatten surfaces with terraces

On the sloppy ground, consider creating gentle slopes that form little stepped garden beds that is flatter which helps to hold soil and mulch in place.

  • Plant a low-growing groundcover plant

A low-growing groundcover plant will help to hold in place the mulch with its roots. Plants allow the ground to absorb water and wind which in turn helps to keep the mulch in place.

With time these plants form a living mulch over the placed mulch which creates an elegant classic-looking garden.

Conclusion

The ideal mulch had good qualities. You should use a mulch that doesn’t compact easily, won’t catch fire, allows water and air into the soil, and decomposes slowly. Planting wind barriers can help to windproof your mulch and prevent it from being blown away.

FAQ

What kind of mulch won’t wash away?

Heavier mulches like hardwood mulch are less likely to be washed away than pine mulch. However, pine straw mulch works better on sloppy gardens because the needles intertwine to stay in place.

What type of mulch lasts longest?

Cypress and pine bark mulches last the longest, but don’t provide plants with many nutrients once they breakdown.

Also read

Grass Clippings as Mulch – Pros and Cons

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