How to: make good use of the cuttings from your Conifer hedge: yes, even Leylandii!

Next time you are clipping your Leylandii, or other Conifer, hedge, don't stuff your car with the waste, and make six trips to the dump: instead, push them through a shredder and use them as mulch.

"No!" you cry, "It will make poisonous acid mulch and will kill all my plants!"

Not true. Simply not true. Many years ago, I was asked the question, "Can I use Leylandii clippings to make the soil more acidic for my acid-loving plants?"  At that time, I didn't know the answer: so I did some research, and found that there were a lot of sites on the internet which stated that conifers poisoned the ground underneath them, because rain washed the "acid" off their foliage, thus making the soil beneath them very acidic.

This would seem to indicate that the clippings, ie the foliage, would be acidic and that using them as a mulch would indeed lower the pH of the soil, making it more acidic.

However, something struck me about all these websites: they all used the same words. The same phrases. The EXACT same wording. They were all, in fact, cutting and pasting from each other, which is a phenomenon which used to be called "plagiarising", back in the days when reading material was printed on paper: but which now seems to be perfectly acceptable - the users of the internet don't seem to see it, or recognise it. And even if they do, even if the original author finds it, there's nothing that can be done about it.

I have even encountered this myself: I've found articles on the internet which have been lifted word for word from articles which I have written: even articles here, on this blog, have found their way around the internet, with other people's names attached to them! And no, I don't even attempt to sue them - as I said, there is pretty much nothing "one" can do about having your content stolen: anyone who puts anything up on the internet has to accept that it can easily be stolen and re-used. 

I try to see it as flattery, although it's always vexing to think that someone else is making money from something which I create and put up here for free: with thanks to those of you lovely readers out there, who support me via Donations or via Patreon - thank you! Thank you!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, researching acidic conifer foliage. I tried to find the original article, which I expected to be some sort of report, a scientific journal, perhaps? A learned dissertation in an obscure RHS publication? Nope, couldn't find anything.

That left me with the option to try it out for myself, so I roped in a co-operative Garden Owner, and did an experiment to see if the soil below various conifers was more acidic than the soil elsewhere in the garden, the theory being, as mentioned, that rain washes the acid off the leaves and into the soil below.

It turned out not to be the case.

Bizarrely, I did not write an article about it - or, at least, I can't find it... but the results were a resounding "no", and conifers do NOT drip, exude or spread acid around themselves. The soil below a variety of conifers turned out to be no more, or less, acidic, than the soil elsewhere in that garden.

So no, using Leylandii clippings will not make an acidic mulch which might be beneficial for acid-loving plants. 

But this also means that yes, Leylandii clippings CAN be used as a mulch!

Time for another experiment: last autumn, we clipped a long run of Leylandii and Lawson Cypress hedging, put all the cuttings through the chipper, then  - with permission from the owner, of course - spread them out as mulch along the bed on the other side of the drive. This bed contained mostly biggish shrubs, with a few Hellebores,  but was infested with ivy, and various small weeds.

 At first the chippings were green and fragrant, in a rather "car air freshener" sort of way. All was well.

Then, after a few weeks, they went black and looked, well, not very nice.

But a month later, I popped back to check up on them:

They had changed from yucky black to a more placid, regular dark grey in colour, and they were indeed smothering the weeds, rather successfully.

Not so much impact on the ivy... although it takes a long time for ivy to die, or show signs of distress, so there may be hope  yet.

I was back there again the following March, and I was delighted to see that the Hellebores were fine, as you can see: they were pushing their way up through the mulch with no difficulty at all.

And the various bulbs were doing likewise -  these are the Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale, to give them their proper name) which were pushing up their leaves in spring, to make the energy to put up their strangely naked flowers, much later in the year.

You can see that, as suspected, the much had not had much effect on the ivy, which was starting to re-colonise the mulched areas.

But generally speaking, the mulch was a great success: minor weeds were smothered, bulbs were unaffected, shrubs were unaffected, Hellebores were unaffected.

We were back there again last month, re-clipping the same Leylandii and Lawson Cypress hedging, and the owner asked up to chip the clippings again, to top up the mulch, which is a sure indication that it was successful.

And there you have it: next time you clip your conifers, shove them through the shredder, and use them as mulch on your shrubberies!

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