Nothing adds color and order to a commercial landscape like a layer of fresh mulch.
And even though mulch certainly makes everything look better, property-boosting aesthetics aren’t mulch’s only benefits.
Mulch helps soil retain moisture, suppresses weed growth in landscape beds, acts as a great insulator to keep temperatures consistent, and even helps prevent soil compaction by breaking down and adding nutrients.
These perks can help prevent root compaction, improve your soil’s physical structure, and reduce lawn mower and string trimmer damage to your commercial facility's plants.
Like any organic material, shredded hardwood mulch has a shelf life on your commercial property. Sun exposure, rain, erosion, and decomposition wear it down. Regularly replenishing your mulch is vital to maintaining these benefits and keeping your facility looking tidy and neat. This is the improved appearance your facility needs to look its best.
You might think mulch installation requires no skill – apply and go. However, mulching correctly takes experience and knowledge of how to install mulch correctly to avoid common mulching mistakes. Mulch installation also isn’t truly a standalone service. It requires some other things to be done right, including:
- Cleaning Debris From Landscape Beds
- Edging Bed Lines
- Applying a Preemergent Herbicide Before To Prevent Weeds
- Installing Mulch Correctly
- Working With a Professional Landscape Maintenance Company
Let’s examine proper commercial mulch installation for Greater Chicago properties, how to avoid some common mistakes, and everything necessary for a successful service.
Commercial Mulch Installation Is More Than Just Mulch
Mulch is truly the best. However, mulch only achieves its full potential when applied correctly and prepared ahead of time.
Without proper mulch installation and preparation techniques, issues that aren’t beneficial for your commercial property’s aesthetics or the preservation and growth of your valuable trees, shrubs, and plants can occur.
Follow the right procedures to avoid mulching mistakes on commercial properties. This will ensure you get the most out of mulch, which usually means focusing on more than just the mulch.
Try these preparation tactics to truly get the most out of your commercial mulch installation service.
Cleaning Debris From Landscape Beds
Before mulching for commercial properties, you must properly prepare a landscape bed.
First, it starts with clearing up the winter leaves. While some may break down through the winter, others are still blowing around or are from trees that drop leaves later in the season. Plus, they could also blow into your site from other nearby properties. You have to clean them out of your beds before applying mulch.
Leaves are also important to clean because they can encourage mold growth or create moist environments that harbor rodents and pests. They can also clog drains and gutters, so removing them helps your building structures function properly.
In addition to leaves, you should also remove debris from landscape beds before mulch installation. This includes sticks, pine needles, pine cones, trash, and other debris. This is important because you want a clean canvas to start with.
It ensures that trash and other things don't build up under your mulch, which may eventually disappear with mulch breakdown or movement.
Edging Bed Lines
Proper landscape bed edging is critical for commercial properties in Greater Chicago before mulch installation. It ensures a clean separation between mulch beds and surrounding grass or hardscape areas, prevents grass infiltration, and enhances the overall property aesthetic.
You do this by marking the bed edge or reforming it, removing grass and soil from the area. Then, you form a trench to keep the mulch contained and prevent grass from growing in the bed.
Applying a Preemergent Herbicide Before To Prevent Weeds
Weeds are survivors. Sometimes, their seeds will sit dormant for years before the right conditions enable them to erupt. This is one of the characteristics that makes weeds so annoying, especially in your landscape beds.
As its name suggests, preemergent weed control targets weeds that have not yet emerged from the soil. When a weed starts growing after the preemergent herbicide application, it hits the herbicide barrier, and the roots cannot continue growing.
Preemergent herbicide application in landscape beds provides a blanket of protection to limit many weeds before they grow, especially those early spring weeds. This is an essential pre-mulch installation step.
Install Mulch Correctly
As a commercial property manager in Greater Chicago, you should never ignore commercial mulching applications. Missing out on this service means missing out on many benefits.
Mulch makes it easier to suppress weeds on your property. If you don’t apply mulch, weeds might have free reign to roam, choking out the plants you want to grow. By not mulching, you’re also not introducing fresh organic material to your soil for improvement.
Mulch can be built into your commercial landscape service contract or broken out separately based on your specific needs.
Typically, mulch is best applied at a depth of 2 to 4 inches. However, how well a property maintains annual mulching can impact how much mulch is needed yearly.
But there are always those who think more is better regarding mulch. They create mulch volcanoes around their trees, piling mulch 8 to 12 inches high around trunks.
Unfortunately, excess mulch around a tree trunk can lead to bark decay, fungus, disease, improper root growth, and root suffocation. While plant decline due to overmulching is slow, it can still happen. You never want to choke a tree trunk or pile up too much of a good thing.
Trees need to breathe. They can’t do that if they are suffocated by mulch. Other signs of plant problems you might notice with improper mulching include:
- Early leaf drop
- Dead branches
- Softer bark at the tree’s base
- Rotting flower stems
- Smaller leaves that the tree or shrub typically has
- Fungus, disease, or mold presence
The right way to do this is to create a well around your tree trunks with higher mulch at the outer edges to ensure it does not touch or suffocate them.
Applying too little mulch is also not good. It may not properly insulate the soil or prevent weeds, and it can also create bare spots as it breaks down.
Mulch should be applied annually for a fresh look and continued benefits. You also want to choose the right kind of mulch. Cheap mulch that is too finely textured won’t last the year on your property. It may decompose more quickly and even negatively alter your soil pH.
Double-shredded hardwood mulch is what you want. It helps retain soil moisture and keeps plant roots at an even temperature. It’s also the best for the soil because it adds great nutrients as it breaks down.
This type of mulch is most popular in brown but also comes in black.
We Can Help You Get Your Commercial Mulch Installation Done Just Right in Greater Chicago
The best-looking commercial landscapes in Greater Chicago boast great-looking plant materials, full, green trees and lawns, and clean, well-designed and installed hardscapes and landscape beds set off gorgeously with shredded hardwood mulch.
Whether you manage an office park, college or university campus, homeowners’ association, retail center, industrial facility or warehouse, or health care facility, your landscape should be something you can look at and be proud of. It should work for you rather than against you by drawing in customers, guests, visitors, tenants, and others. It should elevate your brand and create a great look and feel for anyone navigating your entrances, exits, and outdoor rest areas or hangouts.
You certainly don’t want poor mulch preparation or improper mulch installation to take all this away from you. How frustrating would that be?
Let KD Landscape help. We’re mulch masters, so you don’t have to worry about getting enough or too much mulch. We know how to get this landscape addition for your site’s specific needs. Your personal preference, property specifications, business style, and budget matter, and we consider those when helping you maintain your commercial facility landscape in Greater Chicago.
Want to know more about our commercial mulch installation services and landscape maintenance in Greater Chicago? Schedule an on-site consultation today. We’ll review your options together so you can feel confident and make a great choice.
