What exactly can I use your 100% natural sheep wool garden felt for?

The list is endless! Customers are always telling us about a new way they have used our sheep wool garden felt but here are a few of our favourite ways:

• Mulching areas of a garden or allotment for a ‘no-dig’ method of gardening
• Creating new beds without digging out turf by using the felt to cover areas of grass or weeds and topping it with compost
• Using it when planting out a vegetable patch to protect against weeds, slugs and snail infestations
• Keeping delicate plants protected and warm in the winter
• Tied around root balls of trees to protect them when transplanted
• Capillary matting in plant pots
• As a base layer for propagating seeds indoors

Using the sheep wool garden felt for mulching in ‘no dig’ gardening

Cover your required area with the 100% natural sheep wool gardening felt and, well, that’s it. The wool and jute combination will inhibit weed growth and will also retain water due to its hygroscopic qualities. The felt lasts about a year, over which time it will slowly compost down and release valuable nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphate into the soil.

Want to know more about the ‘no dig’ method of gardening? Head over to Charles Dowding’s website (aka the King of No Dig) to get the lowdown.

Using the felt for developing new beds without digging

It is hard work digging out turfs to create a new bed. With the no-dig method, you don't need to!

To create a new bed, simply lay our garden felt onto the area of grass/weeds and put a good thick layer of compost over the felt - then start planting. It really is as easy as that.

The roots of the plants you sow will push through the felt, down into the soil. The wool and jute combination will smother the grass and weeds sufficiently enough so that they die back and rot away long before the wool felt composts down and releases its wonderful nutrients into the soil.

Using the sheep wool garden felt to protect vegetable patches against weeds, slugs and snail infestations

All you have to do is lay the felt over the area you want protected and cut holes in the felt to pop the plants through. Bob’s your Uncle!

Lots of our customers are commercial gardeners and horticulturalists who want to cultivate produce without using chemical weed control and our gardening felt does just that by smothering them. The texture of the wool is hated by slugs and snails so is great for keeping them at bay too.

Using the felt to keep delicate plants warm and protected in the winter

The garden felt can be used as a duvet (for plants, not people). You can wrap the felt round your pots to make a cosy home for the plants, layer it over the roots for a bit of extra warmth or go crazy and layer it over entire plants to keep them snug and warm during the winter!

Using the sheep wool garden felt to protect root balls when transplanting trees

Trees are delicate things, gentle giants really, and rely on the eco-system of fungi that develop around its root system. If they are transplanted without this support network it is difficult for them to extract all the nutrients they need, and can perish which is not what we want!

Our 100% natural sheep wool garden felt can help with this. Place the tree or plant to be transplanted onto the biodegradable felt and cut a generous square that will comfortably wrap the entire root ball. Use jute or similar biodegradable twine to bind it all together, and plant the lot ensuring that the tree isn't planted deeper than the level of soil that it has started with. The felt will retain the soil it’s grown up in and won’t ‘shock’ it. The wool and jute will retain water to nourish the tree in its early days, and slowly biodegrade releasing valuable nutrients into the soil which will allow the roots to penetrate deeper into the surrounding soil as it grows.

Using the felt as capillary matting

Capillary matting is an excellent way of using water efficiently in the garden or greenhouse. Have you noticed that sometimes when you water your pots, the water gushes straight through? This is often worst with drier plants, exacerbating the problem since the water escapes rather than soaking into the soil.

If you stand your pots on the natural felt, the matting absorbs the water that leaks out and with it being hygroscopic it will hold onto the water. The small holes in the base of the pot enable the moisture to slowly be reabsorbed back into the compost in the pot, ensuring that your plants get a steady supply of moisture rather than soaking-and-drying.

Using the sheep wool garden felt to propagate seeds

Did you ever grow cress on paper towels? If you haven’t you should give it a go, it’s fun! Growing seeds on large pieces of felt takes the process up a whole gear and gives your little seeds the perfect start to life!

Plant your seeds within the sheep wool felt and let them germinate and grow a little bit. Once they've grown a little bit, pull off the pieces of wool where the seed has grown and plant it outside! Or just plant the whole piece into a bed for instant cover.