Sheet Mulching Lavender
Channel: ascknet
Date: 2012-07-28

We planted 1 yr old lavender plants along a path at Valhalla and it quickly became overgrown with weeds. We were also having frequent droughts and the soil was getting very hard. So to fix these problems we employed the permaculture technique of sheet mulching. It can be done with any organic matter but we opted for cardboard to really suppress the weeds. 

Rocks were then put around the lavender's immediate soil to suppress the weeds there, let the moisture in but none out, retain heat, and just look nicer. 

Not shown in the video is our plan to plant clovers over the cardboard with a fine layer of black soil. The cardboard isn't very pretty, so to make it become more of the landscape we wanted it covered, but we also don't want weeds to grow on top of it. Our solution is to plant clover when we know there won't be rain for a few days. Then we can water only the clover and it can get a head start. This way it acts as a living mulch so not very many weeds will succeed in growing in it. It also doesn't grow very high and is easy to deal with so we don't have to worry about it competing with the lavender itself. 

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