Mulch

What goes up must come down, including Christmas trees.Last Saturday we deposed ours. My son and I carried the fallen Christmas tree to a municipal mulching site called Camp Small.There, with a minimum of ceremony, a set of whirling steel blades transformed the once-tall pine into a stream of wood bits. The bits shot toward the sky before eventually coming to rest on a pile of kindred mulch.Watching this was an emotional experience. I rejoiced that, unlike last year, the dead tree wasn't going to block our driveway until it was carted off in a trash truck.

Mulch, a popular landscaping beautifier for shrubs and gardens, can become a fire hazard in dry and breezy conditions unless common-sense precautions are taken, fire officials say.Since Thursday, firefighters in Carroll County have responded to more than a half-dozen mulch fires, including four calls to a Manchester sawmill, mulch and sawdust business."

HERE ARE THE words I never want to hear from your lips if you and I ever bump into each other: "Need any mulch?" In fact, do me a favor, OK? Don't mention mulch at all. Don't ask me how my mulching is coming along. And don't tell me how your mulching is coming along. Don't talk to me about mulch prices, either. Don't yammer on and on about the merits of that fancy black mulch and red mulch versus your standard brown mulch. Because I'm not part of your sick cult. My life does not revolve solely around mulching this spring, unlike the life of every other homeowner I come across.

State environmental officials are reopening an investigation into a Severna Park waterfront property to determine whether mulch placed there to prevent erosion contains toxic chemicals. The inquiry was prompted originally by the complaints of a neighboring homeowner concerned that runoff from pollutants in the mulch could contaminate Cypress Creek. An inspector from the Maryland Department of the Environment determined in August that the mulch, which had been spread by a homeowner on his property, was produced from natural wood products.

The county Department of Utilities will collect Christmas trees during regularly scheduled curbside trash pickups until Jan. 16.If the trees are longer than 4 feet, they must be cut in half and tied together, utilities spokeswoman Jody Vollmar said.County residents can recycle their trees by taking them to drop-off points where they will be shredded into mulch.The mulch will be used at Quiet Waters Park and the Millersville Landfill.Trees can be dropped off at the Glen Burnie Convenience Center on Dover Road, the Millersville Landfill or Quiet Waters between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 9, 10, 16 and 17. They also can be left at the Sudley Landfill in South County on Jan. 9 and 17.To be recycled, the trees must be cleaned of all tinsel and other ornaments, Ms. Vollmar said.

The Carroll County Board of Zoning Appeals determined yesterday that Martin P. Hill, son of prominent housing developer Martin K. P. Hill, is operating an illegal business in Greenmount. After lengthy public discussion, the board found that Hill's operation of a mulch storage and sales facility in the 2600 block of Hanover Pike (Route 30) is an "illegal business" that violates county zoning laws. Martin P. Hill Landscaping has been operating the mulch business for two years at the corner of Cape Horn Road north of Hampstead.

Pieces of tinsel cling to the branches as the pine tree is swallowed trunk-first by the large chipper. After the trunk go the limbs that just hours ago supported delicate glass bulbs and precious family ornaments. In an instant the top, once crowned with a festive angel or a star, has disappeared into its unforgiving mechanical mouth. At the other end, the machine spits out the holiday centerpiece, converted into fragrant garden mulch. Over the weekend, hundreds of Baltimore residents came to Polytechnic Institute on Cold Spring Lane, where the city's Public Works Department recycled Christmas trees and gave bags of the mulch produced by shredding a variety of holiday pines.

I generally mulch all of my plants in early spring, but by fall, much of it has broken down and it barely covers the ground. Should I mulch more than once a year? Mulch can break down quickly during warm moist days of late spring and early summer, and leave plant roots exposed to the warm, drying sun of late summer and early fall. To avoid this, you should mulch again in late summer. However, you should not have more than 1 to 3 inches of mulch on your plants at any one time. Trees and shrubs can often tolerate 3 inches of mulch, but flowerbeds should have no more than 1 to 2 inches.