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That doesn't prove a thing. We can argue some more because people might come to this forum and believe you when you say certain types of mulch can kill your plants. There is no research to back that up. Everything you post above just leads to many questions about other growing conditions and factors.
Interesting article from Cornell, but that is more the exception than the rule, and it can apply to any type of mulch. It has to do with the way mulches are stored and the problem isn't inherent in hardwood mulch. Moreover, the Cornell article stresses that exposure to air dissipates the mulch toxins very quickly. I don't see a problem.
Some types of mulch will inhibit plant growth (I had that issue with glads and much, glads came up stunted and spotted, took me a couple years to connect the dots). Mulch does give a finished look to a bed and conserves moisture.
Mulches in and of themselves do not inhibit growth or cause the kind of damage you describe, that is if it is healthy mulch, not sour or from an infected source. Most of the commercially available mulches have been treated or heated to prevent disease from being spread. If you have read up on glad diseases you'll see right away that every virus seems to result in stunted plants, most often stunted flower stalks as a symptom. The damage you describe sound like often just referred to as "yellows" or fusarium corm rot. There are some nematode problems of gladiolus that can also have similar symptoms but would persist after the mulch is removed. If it came and went with the mulch then I would suspect contaminated mulch not the type of mulch causing the problem.
Mulch definitely has its cons but as for the original poster: Just be sure to keep the mulch away from the trunk/stems of your plants are....keep the mulch well away from there! Your plants need to have good ventilation and having the added humidity and conditions that the mulch adds to the scene makes that necessary ventilation even more crucial.
If you have the mulch too close to your plants, they will likely die. I would not even allow the mulch to be much under the bushes, if at all. To have mulch any closer to the base of your bushes than that would require an almost constant breeze of fresh air movement.
The same principle applies to growing house plants. Always remember ventilation.
A few thoughts on mulch I've experimented with. I tried cocoa bean mulch and then noticed the mold that sprang up on it. Its supposed to be harmless and it seemed to break down pretty easily. Pine bark mulch for the shrubs kept down weeds and lasted a long time but didn't do much to improve the soil where we plant some creeping flowering plants for some color at the borders.
I've used peat moss and it loosens the soil but I'm not sure if it really adds humus to it. Licorice root mulch was easy to work with and broke down quickly, as did cypress mulch. But many say cypress isn't good for differing reasons so I won't use it again.
I noticed that the mulch I spread around the rhododendrons the last few years, a combination of licorice root and cypress and peat moss has really broken down and improved the soil. I've planted some shade flowering plants at its base and they are thriving. The rhododendron seems to be thriving too. If I lucked into a good combination I'll leave well enough alone.
I noticed some mounding near newly planted trees in a shopping center, black mulch nearly a foot high around the tree. That looks bad and can't be good for the tree.
At a local Wendys I saw they have red mulch and very nice plantings around the store and its well maintained. But by the drive thru under a tree theres a patch with untouched shrubs and neglected mulch. The reason... a profusion of poison ivy growing in and around the shrubs.
The absolute worst thing you can do with any type of mulch around trees is pile it up around the trunk. Tree mulch should be a mounded ring away from the trunk a bit. Distances are subject to argument.
The absolute worst thing you can do with any type of mulch around trees is pile it up around the trunk. Tree mulch should be a mounded ring away from the trunk a bit. Distances are subject to argument.
This is definitely true. I can't count the number of trees I see driving by businesses and stuff with mulched piled up around the trunk by the "professional" landscapers. These are the same places that had mulch fires last summer during our extreme heat and drought.
Mulch definitely has its cons but as for the original poster: Just be sure to keep the mulch away from the trunk/stems of your plants are....keep the mulch well away from there! Your plants need to have good ventilation and having the added humidity and conditions that the mulch adds to the scene makes that necessary ventilation even more crucial.
If you have the mulch too close to your plants, they will likely die. I would not even allow the mulch to be much under the bushes, if at all. To have mulch any closer to the base of your bushes than that would require an almost constant breeze of fresh air movement.
The same principle applies to growing house plants. Always remember ventilation.
Why does everything have to be so complicated, so precise? In Nature, trees and shrubs drop their leaves and mulch themselves. No Nature fairies come along and pull the mulch away from the trunks. Sure, we advise people not to heap mulch up against the trunks or crowns of plants, but I've done it in my haste to get 20 years of mulch put down, and to no ill effect. All the gardening I've done over the decades, and all the gardeners I counsel in the MG program, I honestly can't think of a case where we diagnosed someone's problem as mulch being placed incorrectly -- the exception being mulch volcanoes and mulch piled up over tree roots. It just is not a big deal.
I routinely place mulch under shrubs, woithin a couple inches of the main trunks. I do that because under the shrubs is where I tend to get the most weeds. The shrubs are all thriving.
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