Mulch is good to keep moisture in container ?

[pacifica]

According to some forums, people suggested to put a layer of mulch on top of the soil in container to keep moisture. What kind of mulch will you suggest to put ? Is bark mulch good to put or not ?

[don_sanders]

I used some pine bark mulch on mine but I imagine any would suffice.

[Kelby]

Any mulch is good, seems to help reduce the rootball contracting away from the pot sides. Bark mulches are less prone to blowing away.

Belleclare used to recommend using limestone screens (the really fine gravel). That adds weight quickly, though.

[Taverna78]

What about orchid mix as mulch top in cups ?

[drew51]

What about orchid mix as mulch top in cups ?

Sounds OK to me. Again I like pine straw, it is light, and it does blow away at first sometimes, but settles in really well and will not move. I'm cheap and use whatever I can get free. I can get pine straw free! Also around Halloween people use straw bales for decoration then put them out in the trash. I scored so many this year I'm going to do some straw bale gardening. I also use the extra straw for mulch around my fruit trees. You could also use straw in containers.


Pine straw also works well in my raised beds when I have enough!

[eboone]

Last year I put fine or coarse pine park mulch on most of my 5g SIP pots. Using the scientific finger-in-the-pot test, I noted that the ones with mulch were appreciably moister at the distance of one fingerlength into the pot. No quantification was made about plant health or growth to correlate with this observation. No fingers were harmed in the performance of this scientific test.

[fitzski]

I used pine wood chips this past year in some of my larger figs and it helped keep the moisture longer that some of the other ones.

I have no real explanation on why I didn't put the chips in all my pots.

[eboone]

explanation - like me, busy

[fitzski]

Yup, either busy or lazy. One of those.

[pacifica]

Thanks to all for the great information and suggestions.