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I love mulching, and my soil loves it too. Not that I'd admit this in public, but I think it's partly the lazy gardener in me that chooses mulching over digging - it's a far easier way to incorporate bulky organic material into soil.Yes, there's a

thing is just how you can ignore them and they'll still flourish. Despite my heavy clay soil I've just left them in the ground, and they've grown up again every summer. If I was more conscientious I would have spread a mulch of compost over the area

with the stuff, every shrub and fruit bush mulched with a thick layer, and still the overflowing buckets continued to come!I'm a keen home composter - who isn't these days - but I do still resort to buying in mushroom compost from time to time. If I lived near a

, with new shoots spreading outwards from the fringes. The soil they're growing in gets more impoverished as its nutrients become exhausted.So, what can be done? I do spread a good mulch of compost over the soil around them each year, and this is gradually

then run the mower up and down to collect them (thanks by the way, to my son Luke, 11, for taking the photo). The great thing about using a mower rather than simply raking them up is that they get chopped up in the process. I remember the late Geoff

being far hardier.Another trick when growing them in the garden is to plant deeply – perhaps 20cm or more down – so that they’ll get through winter without being frozen. You can often do the same with dahlias and gladioli, perhaps with just a mulch over

into the soil before planting. I crammed three plants into the end of one of my deep beds, where it can be left undisturbed to flourish. A deep compost mulch and regular watering during last summer's drought got it well established. However, this spring two