Maybe our
fascination with sheet mulching started on a visit to the infamous Max Gill's flower garden in San Fransisco last March. "It's a mess!" he insisted. Indeed it was covered with cardboard, yet still the most exquisite clematis - vanilla
scented! - bloomed, along with a smattering of
hellebores here and there.
Akebia,
ecchevaria...I'm digressing, but lets take a quick look:
Anyway! The cardboard was for weed control; a weed barrier if you will that saves your back hours of work when it's time to plant. This stuck in my mind.
In February we have a big southern tier hellebore trip planned. Our goal is to accumulate a large selection of rare
hellebores to serve two purposes; First to be used as specimens in our
Hail to the Hellebore class the first week of March (we'll teach about them and then cut them up like the greedy florists we are), and Second to begin to establish a hellebore garden upstate for future cuttings.
Our hellebore garden will happen in a large patch of pine trees. Sheet mulching this area now helps us prepare for an early April planting and will keep the weeds (and massive stretches of poison ivy) from coming up. Who wants to weed poison ivy? Not I, and judging by her recent work ethic, not
Nea.
There is lots of information on the
internet about sheet mulching - and different ways to do it - we did this:
1. Lay down overlapping cardboard to frame out the area of the garden. It's important to really overlap them generously so that weeds can't find their way through. A nice way to use all those cut flower boxes from our studios...
2. Moisten the cardboard with water to help adhere it to the ground.
3. Cover the cardboard with this layer of seed-free top soil 3 inches thick. This took about 2 tons of top soil which we shoveled into the back of my pickup and then back out of my pickup to wheelbarrows. Next time we might find someone with a dump-truck.
4. Cover the soil with a layer of sawdust (from the
Saipua soap dish mill).
5. Top it with a thin layer of mulch.
Voila! Let the worms get to work. In April we'll dig down to the cardboard, cut and X through it and plant the
hellebores.
R
