Despite what many homeowners may believe, summer is still a great time of year to apply new mulch if it is needed. Spring is always the ideal time to lay down mulch for the upcoming season, but summer mulching can be very beneficial if your gardens and flower beds are dealing with weed infestations.

If your landscape beds are looking dreary, with mulch that is deteriorating and giving way to weed growth, adding new mulch yourself is easy and effective at deterring that growth, but controlling the existing weeds is the first step to mulching success. Join the Summit team as we go over the best ways to control weeds in mulch beds across Lincoln, Nebraska!

How Can You Control Weeds In Mulch Beds?

Mulch serves many purposes in your yard that improve both the aesthetics and the health of your lawn and gardens. One of the most important functions of mulch is preventing weed growth. Weed control is an important step in maintaining a healthy yard, and laying mulch is a beautiful, chemical-free way to stop weeds from sprouting and spreading.

Unfortunately, weeds can still manage to grow in mulch beds as time goes on and the mulch becomes displaced or deteriorated into the soil. When this happens, controlling those weeds is a necessity before applying any new mulch. Below are a few basic tips to get your landscape beds ready for new mulch.

Tip 1) Cut Down Weeds: The first step, before applying new mulch, is to cut down on the weeds. Manually pulling or cutting back existing weeds is essential to the success of mulching for weed control. This practice helps ensure that existing weeds can not continue to grow through your new mulch layers.

Tip 2) Spray The Weeds: After cutting back or pulling weeds, the next step is to spray the weeds with a herbicide. Just covering up the area with mulch is not going to solve the problem. The weeds will poke right back through, and all your hard work will be for nothing. Before applying the mulch, make sure the weed-killer product has enough time to dry and take effect.

Tip 3) Watch Your Step: Lastly, make sure you don't walk on that weed killer and then walk through the lawn or you will leave footprints of dead grass. Spray from the inside of the mulch area and work your way out, ensuring not to step over any areas where chemicals have been applied.

Why Do You Have To Control Weeds In Mulch Beds?

As weeds grow, they absorb nutrients and moisture from the soil, as well as the added nutrients from fertilizers. Your garden beds are forced to compete with weeds for nutrition, and plants that are already struggling to grow will quickly worsen as weeds become more prevalent. Even healthy plants are at risk of losing out on key nutrients when weeds are present, and those healthy flowers can quickly start to lose color and vigor, rendering your mulch beds completely ineffective.

By controlling and preventing weed growth before applying new mulch, you are giving your flowers and other plants the best chance they have to flourish. Weeds spread their seeds via the wind, which can cause a weed problem to spread and grow out of control very quickly. Every weed that is prevented from growing means fewer seeds being strewn across your yard, resulting in more nutrition for the green things in your yard that you actually care about!

How Does Cutting Back Weeds Help?

Mulch controls weeds by suffocating them. Weeds, just like all plants, need sunlight in order to survive. A thick layer of mulch blocks sunlight from being able to reach down to the soil. If seeds from weeds are attempting to germinate under the soil surface, they will require sunlight to do so. This is why cutting weeds back is so important; it helps to prevent the weeds from absorbing sunlight after the new mulch layer is applied, meaning those weeds will have difficulty reestablishing after the new mulch is installed.

How Does Mulch Block Weeds?

While installing a layer (or two) of mulch is a great way to prevent seeds from germinating, mulch also helps prevent seeds from being able to reach the soil in the first place. As wind blows in seeds from other areas of your yard and areas even much further away from your property, the seeds are hoping to land somewhere that has easy and direct access to soil. When you install mulch properly and make sure all areas of the soil are covered, seeds will simply bounce across the barrier of mulch and be forced to find somewhere else to land.

What Type Of Mulch Is Best For Weed Control?

Technically speaking, mulch can be any material that is spread across exposed soil in order to protect it and improve the soil’s health. Organic mulches can be a variety of materials, such as wood chips, hay, straw, leaves, grass, and more. The colorful mulches you are probably used to seeing are hardwood mulch made from tree bark and wood chips.

Hardwood mulch is the most beneficial to the exposed soil of garden beds and other areas. It retains moisture, decomposes quickly, regulates soil temperature, and, of course, inhibits the growth of weeds. Other types of organic mulches, and even some inorganic mulches, will have some similar effects, but hardwood mulch is the most popular and effective mulch for preserving your soil and controlling weeds.

When Should You Replace Your Mulch?

Though it is often believed that mulch only needs to be replaced about every five years, there are other factors to consider when using a hardwood mulch that could mean more frequent mulch applications. Hardwood mulch is completely natural and decomposes relatively quickly, which adds additional nutrients to your soil. Depending on environmental factors that lead to decomposition, you may want to have your hardwood mulch replaced or replenished every year. Thankfully, these mulches are affordable and plentiful, and the benefits of hardwood mulch vastly outweigh this slight inconvenience.

The need for replacing or replenishing your mulch does not always follow a strict schedule. Some years may be much more rainy than other, which can lead to mulch breaking down much more quickly than it would during dry seasons. Even if you had mulch installed in spring, weather events, soil conditions, and other factors may leave your beds looking sparse and weedy sooner than expected. At any time of year, removing weeds and reapplying 1-3 inches of mulch can do wonders for the health and appearance of your landscape. Call Summit today for all your mulching needs in the Lincoln area today, o‍r check out our friend’s lawn care blog!