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We did rocks in a border around the back of our house. Looked GREAT the first couple years - crisp and clean. Now it's overwhelmed with weeds that are easy to pull out, sure, but CONSTANTLY taking over the rocks. It's literally a DAILY battle to clean out the weeds from the rocks. We regret the decision now because we literally have 4-5 tons of rocks that we'd have to move to put down new barrier.
Previous owner did rocks in one bed. 4 years later i'm still trying to get rid of them as I reclaim that area for other use as it was randomly placed in the yard
At least with mulch, It breaks down easier. Front of my home had 20 foot (not joking) mulch beds with some seriously overgrown bushes. Took the bushes down, cut the mulch beds back to 4-5 feet and then was easily able to turn over the remaining 15 feet of bed and plant grass seed and turn it back into a lawn after a season. With traditional wood bark mulch, you can do that.
My neighbor got fed up with mulch and did rocks..10 years ago. Not he admits he's stuck with the placement of his beds as it's not easy to get rid of the large amount of rock if he want to change something. Fortunately for him...he doesn't
We did rocks in a border around the back of our house. Looked GREAT the first couple years - crisp and clean. Now it's overwhelmed with weeds that are easy to pull out, sure, but CONSTANTLY taking over the rocks. It's literally a DAILY battle to clean out the weeds from the rocks. We regret the decision now because we literally have 4-5 tons of rocks that we'd have to move to put down new barrier.
My original landscaping with rocks was almost 18 years ago and there are STILL only a few weeds poking through. I use round-up on 'em now. No way am I starting over with new. Not sure what barrier they used but it has held up for the better part of 2 decades.
Hey, not to forget. Rocks are kewl, but weeds will grow between them and removing weeds from rocks is likely much arduous task than from mulch or bark. So if you want to be safe in that respect, before you spread your top cover, spread salt granules liberally over the bed, where you do not want anything to grow. Salt granules are sold in 40lb bags at Home Depot and 50 lb bags at farm supply stores. Here they cost respectively $7.5 and $7.5. get small granules, not the large ones. Salt prevents any growth, they actually salt ground before asphalting driveways here. Pretty thick layer of salt, but works great. Then just spread whatever your choice is over it.
This is an absolute terrible idea.... Like one of the top stupidest things I have heard all week... let me briefly explain.
Road salt is already contaminating wells and drinking water at an alarming rate. Why would you add more salt onto the ground, to allow rain water to run it into your well, rivers, creeks, water tables, bays and into our public water systems?
Part of why we keep this flower bed is as a barrier for the road salt coming off the road. Our well is contaminated and we are diligently working to keep salt out of it so one day we will be able to drink out water again.
This is an absolute terrible idea.... Like one of the top stupidest things I have heard all week... let me briefly explain.
Road salt is already contaminating wells and drinking water at an alarming rate. Why would you add more salt onto the ground, to allow rain water to run it into your well, rivers, creeks, water tables, bays and into our public water systems?
Part of why we keep this flower bed is as a barrier for the road salt coming off the road. Our well is contaminated and we are diligently working to keep salt out of it so one day we will be able to drink out water again.
I agree that this “advice” is horrible and harmful to the environment. The county I live in soaks deicer solution (mag choride, probably) into dirt roads several times as prep to pave it. It causes the soil to pack up tighter, among other things. This a county where agriculture is one of its main economic legs! Sheesh.
I agree that this “advice” is horrible and harmful to the environment. The county I live in soaks deicer solution (mag choride, probably) into dirt roads several times as prep to pave it. It causes the soil to pack up tighter, among other things. This a county where agriculture is one of its main economic legs! Sheesh.
Same, except they pretreat all roads. It just gets washed into wells and waterways. I fought my county to stop treating our curse sac and the neighbors complained. They are all retired and have no where they need to go. But I am the one downhill so it affects me.
Depends on the county, I guess. We got the chipped pallet mulch, and it was full of nails. A friend used it on his dirt driveway and got two flat tires.
Yeah, I wouldn't think of using pallet chips on a driveway under any circumstance. I only use them on walkways because I have flat-free wheelbarrows.
I tried the county landfill route before, which is $10 a truck load. I am still battling the weeds that created. It is better to spend the money for treated mulch. As I have stated, this is not a small flower bed.
If the mulch isn't at least half composted you can do it yourself and kill the weeds and other pests before you use it in the garden. You'll have to add some sort of nitrogen to the mulch and cover it. Mix and turn like another compost pile until the temp gets high enough to kill the pests. For nitrogen you can add manure or even chemical fertilizers depending on what type of operation you are running. Fortunately our county half (or more) composts the mulch because otherwise they would be spreading little fire ants and coqui frogs everywhere. And weeds.
If you wait until summer before getting your mulch from the county or someone chipping trees, etc., a few days in the hot sun will have the pile steaming and everything will pretty well be killed off before you shovel it onto the beds.
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Cedar mulch actually repels insects.
