Mountains of Mulch (Too Much Mulch)

Welcome to the first SBN blog.  We hope for this to be a place where you can learn about growing food, catching rain water, sustainable landscaping, beekeeping, community based business and just a fun place to add some of what is going on in the Springfield MO community.  I will dive into the topic at hand today, too many mountains of mulch around trees.


Have you ever noticed while you're walking through the woods that trees do not have a huge mound of organic matter around the trunk of the tree (they do have a lot of organic matter spread out over the roots).  You may also have noticed how healthy the trees are in the woods.  Here is where the problem lies, I do not think that anyone knows why they mound mulch up around the trunk of the tree like a mountain.

Girdling caused by Mulching 

Before I started getting into this industry I didn't know either. I thought the only reason for mulch around trees was for aesthetic value, or maybe it was there to make mowing easier. I have come to learn in the last year about the health of a tree, and what is important to pay attention to. I am afraid a lot of landscape contractors may not know as well because they are only worried about the way things look.  Which I completely understand, when you are trying to make a customer happy aesthetic value is sometimes the only thing that is thought of.

Lets look at what happens when you create mounds around the trunk. The roots will start to make their way out of the soil, this makes the tree more susceptible to stress, wind, and drought because instead of spreading out across the earth, the roots begin to get tangled into a ball right inside of your mulch mound. It can also cause the tree to girdle itself and die prematurely.  While it is good to hold some moisture in the soil around the root system if you hold too much you may cause the roots to rot due to TOO MUCH moisture.  Finally roots need oxygen to work correctly, burying them too deeply in mulch will decrease this supply of oxygen.

What we should do when mulching is mimic a natural system....the forest. Not because we are hippies but because this is how you have healthy trees.  It still looks nice you just make a  large diameter of mulch around the tree between 2-3 inches deep,  keep the mulch away from the base of the tree as much as you can without leaving room for weeds to grow up. It is preferable to have the diameter of the mulch to be the same diameter of width from the trees branches. 

The Wrong Way vs The Right Way

One thing that I feel I have to mention before I finish up here is that rubber mulch does not work as mulch.  It may look nice and never go away, but it also heats up the soil too much, smells like well rubber, and does not have any organic matter that will benefit the tree.  This I believe shows how large the issue is.

Now as you're driving around today try and not notice all of the mountains of mulch around the trees in your area, it's impossible once you are armed with this knowledge.  Thanks for being a reader of the first SBN blog.

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