How to Install Reflective Mulch

Reflective mulch is a plastic, nylon or polyethylene sheeting with a reflective, often metallic, top surface designed to repel pests as well as provide the water retention, weed control and heat holding aspects of traditional mulches. Reflective mulches are also ideal for limiting disease transfer from soil to plant, and particularly helpful when growing commercial crops either organically or with chemical boosters. Though used primarily in research or commercial settings there is no reason the product could not be used in the home garden as installation. Use is very straightforward and no different than installing traditional landscape fabric for weed control.

Reflective mulch
Sharp knife
U- or V-shaped anchoring pins or rocks

Instructions

- 1
  Install your reflective mulch over cleared, tilled, amended, fertilized and irrigated soil with the drip or emitter irrigation tubes already buried in the soil, but before seeds or plants are put into the ground.
- 2
  Roll out the reflective mulch like fabric over the top and sides of the planting rows, covering each growing row with the shiny reflective surface facing up towards the sun.
- 3
  Anchor the mulch fabric down with the provided U-shaped or V-shaped pins at the ends and edges of the rows as needed to keep the mulch in place considering local wind conditions. A homeowner using the product on a smaller scale could also use rocks to anchor the mulch down.
- 4
  Cut slits in the reflective mulch surface of the proper size and interval for the seeds or plants you are growing. You need the slit to start out large enough to get the seed or plant into the soil and be firmed in with your hands and for the seedling to be able to exit from under the mulch through the hole. The size will vary widely from seed to young plants and also by species.

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