Just a simple question to all the gardening enthusiasts, what kind of tree bark is safe to use as mulch? I need to mulch the beds (ornamental plants only are planted in it; no vegetables) in my garden and I have a source of chopped up tree bark. I live near a place that manufactures wood furniture and home decor and they have sacks of tree bark just lying around the place. Some of my neighbors have already used it as mulch as well, except there seems to be some types of bark that are not good for plants. Maybe the tree itself secretes some kind of substance that is not good for some plants? The bark in itself is all natural, not (yet) contaminated with chemicals usually used to treat wood. The workers in there assured me that they process the wood after it has been cut up prior to drying. The wood they use is usually narra, yakal, mahogany and the like. I have been looking up bark mulches on google and most of the info in there is for those living in europe or north america. So not much help for someone like me living in the Philippines.
I think I really need to mulch around the plant beds since I work a regular office job and I can only do gardening maintenance for a couple of hours on the weekends and since the rainy season has started, it seems that my garden has been overrun with weeds, I pull up weeds the whole Saturday afternoon and by Tuesday it looks like a jungle again. I don't feel comfy using herbicides so mulching is probably my best bet.
I would appreciate any comments/suggestions/feedback. TIA. :thanks:
Re: tree bark mulch
Hi there jrae,
HE HE HE HE HE, napaka social naman mga neighbors mo, pang mulch land e mga narra, yakal, mahogany at iba pa, joke joke j o k e lang !!!!!!!!!! 😀 :hysterical:
Anyway going back to your question, I guess there is nothing wrong in using any kind of wood scraps for mulching, I personally think any bark or wood scrap will do as long as they have not been treated with some chemicals used for preserving wood. Tree barks and wood scraps are natural and bio degradable and I think we all know that.
I think your wood scraps to be used for mulching should be cut into more small pieces so that there can be more aeration and water retention and also in the long run would be easier to decompost and serve as a fertilizer too, :chop: plus it will prevent the growth of unwanted weeds. Or maybe you can plant some peanut plants on your plant beds, these are ground covers that prevents growth of unwanted weeds plus it is easily propagated plus nag bubulaklak sya ng small yellow flowers every morning and you will be amazed with the out come. :p
HOPE this helps. Enjoy your garden, great for relieving stress.
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Re: tree bark mulch
Free is always good hehehe... And it's just bark not the wood itself 🙂 I am just going along with the neighbors bright ideas but I'm wary of using wood scraps anywhere in the garden. I might decide to plant vegetables in the future and I don't want to accidentally contaminate the soil :headache: We have a ground cover po carabao grass but the problem is I made a few raised beds and those are the ones that always get overrun with weeds. I was asking around a few other people in the office and maybe I should check at Ace hardware and see if they have landscape fabric. Might be a better idea than the wood scraps since I have a few cats and shredded bark and sawdust might give em the idea that the raised bed is one gigantic litter box. 😮
Thanks anyways.
