MULCHING AND WATERING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 305, 26 December 1931, Page 5 (Supplement)

MULCHING AND WATERING.

Plants in the flower border would benefit enormously if quite half the time which is spent by the amateur with the hose or watering-can were to be expended in providing a suitable condition of surface soil to enable the border to withstand the trying days of mid-summer. Where supplementary plants have been put out in the border, a good soaking occasionally is certainly advisable, and young seedlings also should on no account be allowed to become dry. But these are in a totally different case from established plants, whose roots are deep in the ground, and for which the essential lies in preserving the soil moisture around their roots, and checking evaporation from the soil's surface. To do this there is nothing better than a surface mulch, by which means a cool and moist condition is secured to the surface soil, and so to the plant itself. Air is thus freely admitted, and the process of dissolving and unlocking plant-foods already in the 6oil are, by the combination of air and moisture, at once set going. A mulch should never be put on dry soil. A soaking, enough to go down a good way, should be given a short time before applying the mulch. Not only do flowers benefit by this means, but fruit trees and vegetables also, especially so on light, shallow land.