Summer is coming and it plans to be hotter for longer. One of the first things I would strongly recommend doing would be mulching.
The best types of mulch you can choose are Hammermill pine, pine bark and red gum chips.
Mulching not only suppresses those unwanted weeds in the garden, but also can stop erosion and be an amazing at holding moisture in the soil. Holding moisture in the soil is vital for your Bayside and Mornington peninsula gardens which tend to have sandy soil. Sandy soil isn’t great at retaining water; therefore, mulching is the best thing you can do to hold that water in during the warmer months of the year.
Avoid using black mulch. Black mulch unfortunately is produced using old timber pallets that are chipped up and sprayed with a black paint. The black paint can leach into the soil and cause all sorts of problems to the environment. In addition, you will need a lot more of this product to cover a larger area because it comes in very small pieces. Being black it attracts the heat. And I think you’ll find on a very hot day, it does the opposite to cooling the garden down, but heating it up, which leads to lose of moisture.
If you like the look of colour black, use surecrop compost instead. The name explains exactly what it is. It not only looks more appealing than cheap black mulch, but feeds the garden at the same time.
Irrigation
Rather than stand out all evening with a hose and watch those water bills keep rising, install a water efficient irrigation system instead.
There are three types
- Drip system – Great for vegetable gardens where you wanted the water lower to the ground which will get to the roots quicker. Also good for around the bases of individual trees and new garden beds
- Sprinklers – Best more uniform coverage- Only downside is that they can often miss certain areas of the garden when not installed/designed properly and this can cause water wastage.
- Lawn irrigation – A definite worthwhile investment. I installed 100m2 of turf for a client and they didn’t want a sprinkler system installed to water their lawn. I think it’s madness not to at least consider one, especially if the total area is over 10 square metres. When using a manual hose water often doesn’t get distrubuted evenly accross the whole lawn leading to lawns drying out quicker and causing real problems down the track.
Manual hoses can leak and waste tons of water. All irrigation systems should be installed with an automatic Bluetooth timer of adequate quality, with last the test of time. Remember the saying- Quality lasts longer after the price tag is forgotten.
Choosing drought tolerant plants. Plants that grow successfully over in the warmer parts of the world such as in France and the Mediterranean.
Plant more trees. Great for those hot days when you want to seek shelter from the hot sun.
See you in the garden!