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Adding mulch to a garden has a variety of benefits, from maintaining moisture levels to keeping the weeds out. Perhaps most importantly, mulch can make the soil of your garden better. "Mulch plays a big part in growing better soils.", "Mulching is a way to continue that process on a natural scale.", Experts say that mulching is a way to recreate the natural and slower soiling processes that occur in forests. "In a forest, there's no big heap, just a layer of an inch or two or three, breaking down and returning to the system.", With mulching, it's good to think in the long term and to trust that the process will continually improve your garden over the span of several cycles. "Every year that you are adding mulch, you are creating additional soil, and your soil will be better.", "Most people don't want to put down something that breaks down quickly, because you have to do it again and again.", "But if you take the attitude that you're growing the soil, maybe you'll think differently. It's hard for soil microbes to chew on big chips.", Dr. William C. Fonteno, North Carolina State University, via 'The New York Times'. Therefore, mulch should be applied sparingly and practically rather than in heaping piles or decoratively. Horticulturists say that the ingredients of a good organic mulch can include leaves, the leftovers of cut grass, straw and even wood chips and bark. Grass and leaves will decompose quickly, whereas bits of wood mulch will take longer. Bits of mulch that take longer to decompose allow your soil to maintain proper nitrogen levels, which is beneficial if you don't wish to add fertilizer

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