Tarrant County Master Gardener Association - Texas A&M AgriLife ...

Our Soil, what Happened to it during the Drought? -cont’dSharecropper Page 2then protect it with some good quality mulchto hold the effects of the heat and drought toa minimum. I read something on a posterthat stuck in my mind all these years.“The soil is the engineof the garden andshould be treated as a resource”.The beneficial soil life can then perform itsjob only if we do our part in following siximportant rules when growing new or existingplants.Of the above rules, the fourth rule is the mostimportant. It is the law of recycle and return.When best practiced, it supports the other fiverules and makes them less important.So in the words of a famous Horticulturalistthat I have long admired:Compost once and Mulch Forever!Enjoy your yard; keep the soil alive and letMother Nature take care of the plants. Insteadof raking all of those leaves up and baggingthem and sending them to the landfill, compostthem and put it right back into youryard!Importance of Mulch as InsulatorRules to Grow By:1. Use the best adapted plant varietiesfor each and every environment.2. Plant in the preferred season.Trees in late fall, roses in earlyspring.3. Balance the mineral content ofthe soil, perhaps through the useof a soil sample sent to A&M’ssoil lab?4. Build and maintain the soil organiccontent – humus. You cannever get too much compostedmaterial back into the soil!5. Do nothing to harm the beneficialsoil life.6. Consider troublesome insectsand most diseases as symptomsof one of the above rules havingbeen violated!Note how the half bed with mulch retainssnow to melt slowly and insulates rootsfrom freeze. The bare ground is left unprotectedto extreme freeze/thaw and meltruns off quickly.A nice thick layer of mulch serves somany purposes, but one of the most importantis insulator. In winter, the mulchkeeps drying wind from evaporating thesoil moisture and it protects surface rootsfrom freezing temperatures. In summerthe mulch protects roots from scorchingsun, extreme heat and retains moisture.