Mulch

The value of mulching around plants is quite well known. It can reduce the need for watering, as the mulch breaks down it adds organic matter to the soil, it provides habitat for bugs which provide food for larger animals such as birds, frogs and lizards and it is also a home for fungi.

Fungi are nature’s great decomposers. The ‘mushroom’ that we see is just the tip of the iceberg though, being the fruiting body. The real workhorse of the fungi-brigade is the fine threadlike white bits you often see under leaf litter or mulch, the hyphae.

Fungi are very good at breaking down woody material, if they weren’t around we’d be buried under piles of
dead wood, everyone can do a bit for decomposition by leaving some leaf mulch and a few bits of wood about.