Experts Say: Stop & Wait! Don’t Mulch Your Garden Beds Just Yet

It's early May and when the weather gets warmer, it's always nice to top off your yard beds with a 2 to 4 inch topping of mulch. It just makes everything look so much better. However, garden experts say you should wait to put down that mulch, otherwise you might end up with a mess.

According to Master Gardener Dave M, it's a good idea to wait for the seedlings to drop from the trees before you put down a new layer of mulch. "If you apply mulch before the seeds drop from the maple, then you have a more difficult time cleaning up any seeds to prevent the germination and resulting weed trees," said Dave M. "If you apply the mulch after seed drop, then you do have the opportunity to clean up those seeds before applying the mulch, resulting in less weed problems. Failure to clean up the dropped seeds before mulching actually would encourage the seeds to germinate since they would have good contact with soil or organic matter (the mulch)."

Maple Copters

Most Maple Trees in our region will shed their seeds in May, which is why many gardeners recommend that you avoid mulching until late May or early June. Sugar Maple trees in a good year can literally blanket your mulch bed with seeds after a good rain or wind storm.

By the way, the Maple seeds or "Copters" are meant to break from the tree and swirl to the ground, and fly away from the mother tree. This is why these seeds are such a nuisance, because they travel and blanket beds with seeds that will quickly turn into tree seedlings.