▷ Colorful decorative mulch is hopelessly out of fashion

Colorful decorative mulch it was a popular way to beautifully arrange flower gardens. However, now it can be said with certainty that such a thing has gone out of fashion and has no hope of becoming popular again at least for a few years to come.

THE ORNAMENTAL FLOWER IS GIVING UP POSITIONS

Over the past decade (and maybe several decades), the classic has been in fashion ornamental flower gardenwhich is low, the plants are compact, the flowers are bright. The beauty of the flower garden was created with ornaments: plants are planted in rows, squares, triangles, ovals and other shapes.

Tall plants did not allow you to see the ornament, so carpet plants became more and more popular. To make the lines well separated, annual flowers with large flowers and a characteristic light color were planted, such as begonias or sprigs.

Annual flowers require a lot of care, so a more durable alternative soon appeared: colored decorative mulch. Be it bright pebbles, stained glass, or painted wood chips – they all performed an ornamental function, but did not require transplanting or annual watering.

Today, however, the classical ornamental style is reserved only for historic homes and buildings naturalistic style it invades not only the homes of trendy designers, but also the common backyards of gardening communities. This refined wave of naturalism changes not only the picture of ecology, but also aesthetics.

THE FLOWER GROWS

A naturalistic flower garden does not at all mean that it is a messed up sabbatical from nature. There are many different ways to create such greenery, there are certain principles of plant selection, planting schemes, different installation methods. Already organized in Lithuania courseswhere you can learn how to create a naturalistic green design.

Naturalistic design. photo by the author Rasa Laurinavičienė

Instead of flat ornaments, plants of various heights are chosen height, volume, shape. Do not be afraid to choose extremely bold herbaceous plants, which in the course of a year reach one meter, one and a half meters or even two. Perennials are planted in such a way that after a few years they grow into a continuous meadow, so that even weeds have no place to intervene.

Is there still room for decorative mulch? NO.

First of all because beauty is created plantno pebbles, mulch or other covering.

Secondly, because it creates a luminous effect contrast between the hard cover and the plants. The cobbled path is flat: the nearby plants are tall and lush. The concrete wall is hard and geometric: the plants growing nearby are scattered, “soft”, swaying in the wind. A flat mulch cover does not “grow upwards”, does not create volume, so it no longer fits into a modern flower garden.

MULCH PERFORMS ANOTHER FUNCTION

It cannot be said unequivocally that we throw away mulch from flowerbeds. Mulching is beneficial for plants: it covers the soil from too rapid evaporation of moisture, improves the soil structure, creates favorable conditions for the life of beneficial microorganisms, but makes it difficult for weeds to grow. Mulched soil needs to be watered less often (sometimes you can do without irrigation), it needs to be weeded much less often.

These are all the benefits I have listed and everyone talks about mulching as a help for plants functionand not on the decorative purpose. You don’t have to pretend it isn’t there, you don’t have to think that colorful decorative mulch will be both useful and beautiful. You probably wouldn’t put painted wood chips in a salad bed, so we don’t recommend using them in the flower garden either.

For easier maintenance, we follow the laws of nature. There is no naked place in nature: there is a fallen leaf, there is a thorn, there is a twig, there is a pebble and there is a weed. Where you leave clean, uprooted soil, a plant will immediately grow there; planted by you or a weed. If you cover the empty area with hay, cut and wrapped lawn grass, natural coniferous bark, then that area will already be occupied, it will be much more difficult for weeds to get out. Check out this short film we made videowhich tools are suitable for mulching in the garden and flower garden.

NATURALITY IN ALL AREAS OF LIFE

I can’t say that ornamental flowerbeds won’t come back into fashion, but it’s absolutely clear that a healthy, ecological, natural lifestyle has already become a norm, not a trend. It is therefore not surprising that artificial solutions, such as colored decorative mulch, go to the margins. An ornamental flower garden requires precise maintenance, since it is necessary to maintain perfect lines, a clean image and bright colors. It takes a lot of time, fertilizing, spraying, shaping, transplanting. It’s like a constant struggle with nature, trying to hold it back and “fix” it.

Precisely shaped plants, strict lines, decorative mulch require a lot of resources to “fight” with nature. Rundale, Latvia, photo. L. Liubertaitė

Meanwhile, natural natural style is characterized not by precision, but by freedom, drive, spontaneity. We are increasingly loosening the reins and allowing plants to be less static than beautiful furniture, but more dynamic and the living, with all the consequences that derive from it. Let them turn brown in the fall, let them self-seed, let them show not only flowers, but also mature pods. The beauty of the environment is perceived more and more widely, we also notice the openwork of the plants, their shapes, the variety of leaves, fruits, the color of the bark, the shape of the inflorescence. The glowing mulch here would not only look artificial, but it would also compete with the plants in terms of brightness.