Yes even with synthetics.
You save water. Saving water means saving nutrients. Saving nutrients means saving money. Must i say more?
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Do you have any recommended mulches beyond cannabis leaves?
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Iāve personally used hay, rice hulls, and coffee chaff. Iād think that just about any ābrownā compost material would work great, like shredded newspaper.
Over on icmag there was a guerilla grower (silverback) who had done side by side comparisons using mulch vs no mulch, and the water retention and root growth made a marked difference. Iāll drop a link to it shortly.
Silverbackās threads for some good reading
The aforementioned mulch comparison is titled āguaranteed yield increaseā so get some mulch, folks
Iād recommend a cover crop overall, it works great. But if you just use a mulch layer thatās also excellent. Do what you want, I just know what I like. 
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My favorite is planting fenugreek seeds and growing my own mulch! Straw, alfalfa hay, timothy hay, many great choices
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I mulch stems, leaves, and buds after making hash. On top of that, I have a living mulch of dichondra and clover. Iāve used rice hulls, barley straw, and DE as mulch in the past.
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Peace All. Long ago, say back in '07, when I first started learning to grow, I re ad I believe it was a post on RIU, maybe some Jorge Cervantes infoā¦ camt recall the sourceā¦lol.
Anyway, it was said to use hydroton on the top of the soil to help keep water and grow roots up in the less hospitable zone for roots which is the upper most of the pot. I never actually considered it a mulch but it is the same thing. Not organic. Not free. But if U had any hydroton laying around from attempts at hydro like I dis, U could use it. Best thing is it doesnāt go away so U can have it for ages. The hydroton I have I brought 10 yrs ago and still use it for this purpose ( lost a bit or threw some out along the way but still a couple handfuls left.) Thanks for reading. Stay safe, Be well. 
Peace
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Hell yeah man. Non organic mulches are great for non organic gardening. But in notill we need that mulch to decompose as thats a buncha food for the girls!
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We mulch hard we clean a ton of straw, rabbit poo, and leaves , weāve been piling it in one place for 3 or 4 years. I think we have some very good amendment for our raised soil bedsā¦
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To think like a gardener, you should start by thinking of your yard as a mini-farm, with all its potential for growing food, storing food and growing soil fertility. Mulch is a great way to grow and store food, and it is also a good way to start building soil fertility. Mulch helps you to protect the soil from being washed away or blown away by the wind, and it keeps the soil moist by preventing evaporation. Its the mulch that keeps the food youāre growing in the ground, producing and storing. But mulch doesnāt just keep the food growing in the ground, it helps all the plants growing above ground, too. The nutrients in the mulch eventually get released back into the soil, where they help plants grow.
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