What Is Compost for a Flower Bed?

Compost provides many benefits to the flower bed.

Compost has many uses in the home garden and particularly in flower beds. Many a home gardener maintains a compost pile or bin for the many benefits of this organic, free resource. Composting green waste is a great way to recycle and be Earth-friendly. Used properly, compost can make your flower garden look and perform much better.

Definition

Compost is made up of decomposed organic materials, such as grass clippings, fruit and vegetable peels, leaves, straw, weeds and green clippings from around the yard. These materials must be completely decomposed, which occurs in the compost pile or bin with the help of fungi and bacteria, before they are suitable for use in your flower bed.

Sources

Make your own compost with yard or kitchen waste, or buy it at home and garden stores. Purchased compost will have been made under controlled conditions to ensure there are no weed seeds or harmful materials in the compost.

Use

Add compost annually to the flower bed in the spring. In flower beds, add a 2-inch layer of compost and incorporate it into the top 8 inches of soil. Compost also makes an ideal mulch for flower beds, according to the University of Minnesota Extension. Remove weeds from the flower bed before applying compost as a mulch. Apply a 2- to 4-inch layer of compost around the base of each plant. Compost mulch can be added throughout the summer and again to the soil at the end of the growing season.

Benefits

Compost is a free resource, an Earth-friendly way to reuse green materials and packed with nutrients readily available for your flowers' use, reducing the need for fertilizer. Compost also will help loosen compacted or clay soils.

References

• University of Minnesota Extension; Composting and Mulching: A Guide to Managing Organic Yard Wastes; 2000
• Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension; Using Compost in Your Landscape; Diane Relf; May 1, 2009
• University of Missouri Extension: Compost to Improve Your Garden Soil