hydrangeas

I want to put bark chips on some of my flowers and around my hydrangeas to suppress weeds. Will this cause any damage to the hydrangeas

 

Quite possibly. Check the pH of the bark, also if it is cheap with shredded white wood in it don't use it. It sometimes carries disease. That's the voice of experience talking I'm afraid.

 

Hi and welcome Locarno.

Last year I put bark chips around my hydrangeas and perennials. They all seemed to be happy. I am sure the hydrangeas would like the moisture to be kept in. The biggest problems are that the birds chuck it about in the search for worms, and that it is difficult to add manure or your own compost at a later date as it will be on top. You also tend to mess it up if you do any replanting. I would have repeated the process this year but I found a good source of fine vintage manure instead.

 

Hello locarno and welcome to GC!

I have just bought a hydrangea (my third here as I lost the first two) and I now have this one on our irrigation drip.

The name Hydrangea comes from Greek words ... hydor, meaning water, and angos, meaning a vase or something similar which resembles the seed pod. Hence it's need for much water ... something I didn't know with my first two plants!

 

I don't have a garden, but I tend to my m-i-l's, I planted aubretia around the hydrangea's at the front and it seems to suit all well... no weeds, pretty flowers, ground cover and the hydrangeas don't seem to mind it being there.

 

LOL .. our Hydrangeas (Hortensias here!) survive only in a shaded area ...otherwise too, too hot ... ours are shaded by our maple parasol ..

I have used bark on the flower beds for many years, which doesn't seem to have any adverse effect on plants .. also have a very active blackbird that likes to fling the stuff all over :rolleyes: M-L

 

Morning M-L. They are Hortensias here as well! I have it in a shady spot. Bought it only in bud and they are all opening. Will take a pic.

I had bark once in Bucks ... never again! ... we were inundated with woodlice! :eek:

Hope the thumb is feeling better. Are they "fall out" stitches or do you have to go back?

 

Boa tarde LOL ! Interesting about the bark ...perhaps it was too humid !

Stitches are the 'removable' kind :eek: our Doctor will do the honours next Friday ............I admit to being a 100% coward when it comes to pain so I'm NOT looking forward to that .... meantime I shall keep :D
M-L

 

Went to the garden centre and got a gorgeous Thunbergia alata, the Black Eyed Susan. It's already a metre tall or more around tripod canes. Also got two yellow Convulvulous for wall planters to replace straggly Petunias bought in April/May (already cut back and finishing their second go around) and three orange single flowered Zinnas for the planter where the tomatoes were under the kitchen window. The Thunbergia is to replace my French Lavender which has died. All these things are on the kitchen patio.

Went out to plant it all and got as far as taking the tomatoes out and putting the Zinnias in then gave up as I was hot and exhausted! It's only 31oC but the sun if full whack on the patio at the moment so that will be finished later.

Ate ja!

 

Hi everyone. Forgive me but I'm going to bang on about this a bit more!

I have also used bark for many years, and have now cut my use down substantially. The problem is more in the cheap 'woodchip' end. I don't doubt its benefits, or that 90% of the time its OK, just that it isn't 100%.

Think about it:
100% bark - usually pine bark - comes from forestry sources, the trees are cut for wood. They are healthy or the wood would likely be stained and not saleable. Little chance of a problem here.

Woodchip - mixed bark and white wood, usually softwood but may contain all sorts including recycled board and other building materials, with added urea and 'composted' in a simple windrow to colour it down and remove any disease. The larger fraction of chips come from tree surgeons. Now sure they cut down trees because they're too big, need thinning, etc, but they also cut them down because they're diseased, old, senescent. It all goes the same way. If the composting isn't 100%, potentially you can be buying a heap of diseased rotting tree refuse. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out what happens next.

On the pH front, a surprising amount of bark, and especially the chips and 'composted fines' (which is the stuff that looks really posh and a bit like peat), is quite alkaline pH 7.5 or thereabouts. Hydrangeas don't like lime, so if you have a neutral soil you might be pushing it the wrong way for your plant and risking chlorosis. You should be safe with real bark, but its always worth a check.

Real bark, it costs more, but it lasts longer, looks a hell of a lot better, and doesn't carry the same level of risk. Hell, and I'm not even selling it. If you can afford it the 'playgrade' bark is best, the big chips last a long time, and it's guaranteed hygenic (I leave that explanation to your imagination)

Actually I like the way those silly blackbirds chuck it about. Hours of harmless fun. I blow a 1' clear edge of soil at the edge of my lawns to stop this mess, and to make it easier to edge the lawn and pick up the clippings.

 

jazid ..you 'bang on ' about it all you want :D We go to a local wood yard here where they bring in the pine trees and strip them down ...there are mountains of well dried bark which can be bought very reasonably in whatever quantity we want .... so thankfully we don't have the problem of the wood chip rubbish... M-L

 

Another good reason to move to France. Dammit why do I stay here. Note to self; - possible subject for new thread :rolleyes:

 

Jazid - you have a good point about the disease aspect. Whilst the chance is small - it could be very serious if it happened. What happened to you? Would a tree disease only affect another similar tree, or can it affect perennals and other plants - and does it remain in the soil?

 

I have seen problems in a few areas, only one of which I can categorically state comes from the bark, but once I started thinking about this possible transmission route I also noticed the new arrival of symptoms sometimes corresponds with the application of the mulch. I now only use pure bark - preferrably playgrade or large chip size, and am cautious about this as well.

The major problem I have had has been with an ornamental rose garden. I underplanted the roses with anemone nemerosa in vast quantities and they spread for a few years to form a lovely carpet. After an application of bark fines strange caps of fungi appeared in the spring and these hyphae were parasitising the anemones. Now - two years on - there are only sporadic patches of anemones left. The roses have also suffered with necrotic lesions spreading from the mulch layer up the stems. No advice or info that I have obtained seems to explain the diseases, my guess is they came from Europe in the bark. I am particularly cautious about applying soil based fungicides on this garden, because although I spray the roses bi-weekly, the soil itself has been tended in a fringe organic manner for twenty odd years and is in excellent heart; I think it unlikely that a blanket fungicide will kill off the disease completely but it will upset the soil microbial community. I will probably have to replant with some other more resistant plants (which I have started trialling).

Honey fungus has arrived in a couple of gardens that never had it before, and I have been looking after them for many years. Can't say for certain as there are so many variables at work but they also had bark unlike before (in this case woodchip type).