Friday, May 18, 2012

Perma-Bark

I'm certain Dante missed a circle of Hell where wicked gardeners are forced to pick detritus out of an endless bed of PERMA-BARK®.  I got a head start on this today as I attempted to remove pine needles, leaves & strands of ornamental grass mysteriously threaded into the crushed basalt. I rate the use of this awful material in garden beds right up there with installing lead pipes for potable water & staring unblinking at the sun for pleasure.

And forget about amending the soil in your beds; once the rock "mulch" is installed, you're left with a material that dramatically heats up the ground in the summer sun, offers little in the way of water retention in the growing season or insulative protection for roots in the winter and slowly chokes the life out of trees and shrubs.

Reason enough for eternal damnation.