Pine Straw Mulch – Pine Needle for Winterizing Your Garden
It is considered the fact Pine Straw mulch is a sustainable, renewable resource, it’s so great and lightweight to work with pine needle and looks very attractive. Young seedlings can grow through pine needle, water can filter down through it, the ground can breathe and yet pine straw still holds in moisture. It lasts quite longer than other similar materials and pine needle won’t blow away with the first drenching rain.
In fall mulching with pine straw has an significant part since temperatures in the late fall to wintertime months can change radically. The ground heaves as it freezes and thaws, forcing the root systems of many fragile plants up from the dirt and exposing them to the elements. Just about all plants are much healthier when they have a layer of pine needle mulch spread over their roots.
When mulching with pine straw you should wait until the ground is frozen or most frigid before you add the pine needle. Any sooner covering will futher mold and mildew to form on the surface. Generally, a 2- to 3-inch layer of pine needle mulch set over the root zone of a plant will provide a detectable difference in the plant’s health. Established plants will show less stress and better growth. Just be sure to pull pine straw mulch an inch or two away from the stems of shrubs or from the trunks of trees. If pine needle mulch is heaped up against trunks or stems, it can contain too much water and promote decay along the bark.
Many people make the mistake of using less reliable fall mulch such as hay in their garden. Hay is not a good choice to pine straw since hay often carries seeds that will in time sprout and cause weed problems in your garden bed in the spring. Pine straw comes from several different species of pine trees that drop their pine needles or ?straw? naturally through the year. Once the pine needle drops to the ground, it is cleansed and baled, without ever cutting down a single tree. Since it is produced naturally, pine straw sometimes is referred to as the “guilt-free” mulch. Each species’ of pine tree will have its own unique characteristics, such as pine needle length, wax content and pine needle flexibility. The Loblolly species of pine straw, for instance, has a pine needle length ranging from about six to nine inches, making it easy to utilise and shape. Also, the needle sizing is optimal for allowing the dirt to breathe well while allowing first-class water infiltration.
Ideally, garden mulch for the wintertime is added in the fall to protect against sudden and extreme temperature dips before plants have had a chance to fully harden. A few inches of pine straw mulch can provide a cushion of as much as 10 degrees above ambient air temperatures which is just enough to keep roots growing. And certainly, a top layering of pine needle mulch offers cosmetic appeal, making the garden to look cared for at a time when the yard can look a little underwhelming.
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