While some think of mulch as simply an aesthetic component of a landscape, it is so much more. Mulch has a large impact on the health of your landscape plants, including your palms and trees. Selecting the correct mulch and the appropriate application will benefit your plants, the wrong mulch and application can cause significant harm.

There are two broad categories of much: organic and inorganic.

Organic mulch is derived from once living plants. Products such as living materials such as pine bark, pine straw, wood chips, and fallen leaves, are a few examples. As the material decomposes, nutrients are released, enhancing the soil and increasing moisture retention.

The use of organic mulch has several benefits. With the application of 2–3 inches mulch around landscape beds offers multiple benefits:

• Suppresses weeds
• Retains moisture
• Regulates soil temperature
• Improves soil fertility

Since organic mulch is made of decomposing plant material, you need to keep it away from the trunks of woody shrubs and trees, and palms. Think of a donut with a hole in it. The hole should be around the trunk and a few to several inches out. The exact size depends on plant size and age. Too often mulch is piled up around woody trunks like a volcano mound.  This traps moisture around the trunk, increasing the risk of rotting the live tissue. This can lead to a number of additional health issues including root rot. Palms have an added issue of crowing roots further up the trunk. This is also an issue if irrigation hits a palm trunk.

Remember, donuts are good and help plants grow, volcanos can kill.

The mulch donut provides a second benefit with newly planted trees and palms. When that center donut ‘hole’  surrounds the rood ball of the new plant, it holds the water right where the new roots are establishing. This helps plants establish faster. As the plant becomes established, the mulch ring can get smaller, but should never touch the trunk.

Moving on to inorganic mulch, we see things like gravel or rubber that never decomposes. While this material lasts longer than organic mulch, they do not offer the benefits of organic mulch. On fact, they can create maintenance challenges in your landscape.  Inorganic mulch can increase soil temperatures and reflective heat on plants, changes to soil pH can cause nutrient uptake issues, and they do not suppress weeds not do they help to retain soil temperature or moisture. This UF does not recommend inorganic mulch around plants in landscape beds, there are many placed in landscapes that may be needed.  Stones and rocks can be used as walkways, for rain garden bases, around downspouts.

To learn more about the different types of much see my blog on Mulch Options for the Home Landscape here: https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/lakeco/2022/03/29/mulch-options-for-the-home-landscape/

More information about mulch: https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/care/planting/mulch/

Watch a Tree Tip Video on the Topic:

https://youtube.com/shorts/ypBdTicxnPY?si=XhzKGxO8y3icQpXW

https://youtube.com/shorts/iJPIrY4KXyQ?si=c8n0C01xSAnDmRYB

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