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Fiancé and I are in debate about mulch. He is fed up with moving a dump truck load of mulch every spring. Last year the neighbor was kind enough to help me because fiancé worked the day it was dumped in the road in front of the house. I only had a few hours to get it out of the road.
He wants to put rocks or rubber down. I like the traditional look of black bark mulch. But it is a lot of work.
I do the same thing, but since I am a single dad and my time is needed all over the place, I usually get the bags of mulch and work on one bed at a time. Or perhaps two.
What's the compromise? Too much work for one person. You still like the mulch look, which I have to agree it makes the surrounding area look a lot better. I do like the look of rubber or rocks, too, but in only some scenarios.
Boiling it down, you have work to do outside, even with rubber or rocks. I would think the latter has more work than mulch does. You would sometimes need to remove all of the rocks to remove dead debris from other seasons (leaves, branches, tree seeds - maple trees are the worst ). With mulch, it would be a little easier to work with.
I guess the compromise would be for you to suggest to him that you take care of the beds by adding mulch. However, if the only way is to get a truck to drop off the kind of mulch you like, you might have to look at additional options to help move it to your beds. Enlist the help of the neighbor kids, as one suggestion.
I get bagged shredded bark for most areas to mulch because I only work on a little at a time, and because it is compatible with our natural ground cover. When trees are being cut down, you might be able to buy the chipped wood and pick up a truckload or have it delivered. My husband did this one time. I wish he would do it a few more times.
I am thinking it might be better to use lava rock around the cacti, though. What kind of mulch you use depends on what plants, soils, and climate you have. Not just on what is convenient.
Rocks are definitely inconvenient due to their weight, but I can see places where they would be the best fit.
Whatever you do, don’t take X amount of mulch and spread it thinly over a large area. Spread it thicker over a smaller area and next time do another area thickly also. Spreading too thinly over a larger area does not work well; the weeds can still come up from below and find sunlight.
In our yards areas where mulch was needed, I tired of the labor and the expense of doing mulch every Spring, so I stopped. So when it came leaf pickup time, I would mow/bag up the leaves and dump them in the barren spaces.
It was not long before my barren spaces ended up with a fertile base of humus. Then, with the help of nature and probably some bird droppings we now have all sorts of various ground covers and wild flowers, where mulch was once needed. Just a thought.
Last edited by greglovesoldtrucks; 05-13-2019 at 09:18 AM..
Fiancé and I are in debate about mulch. He is fed up with moving a dump truck load of mulch every spring. Last year the neighbor was kind enough to help me because fiancé worked the day it was dumped in the road in front of the house. I only had a few hours to get it out of the road.
He wants to put rocks or rubber down. I like the traditional look of black bark mulch. But it is a lot of work.
What do you all use? Is there a compromise here?
Why are you putting new mulch down every spring? It should last several years. All you have to do is turn it and/or rake it to get it looking like new again. Put down a good thick layer of it, not a thin sprinkling.
As for rocks, it's hard to get leaves and twigs out of it after a windstorm, and weeds grow in between the rocks as well. As for rubber mulch, I'd politely decline. Natural mulch is best.
We get free mulch from the county. They take all the green waste and compost it about half way and will load it up for free to anybody with a pickup truck or larger. Another option is the tree trimming companies will drop off (deliver) for free the stuff they grind up. We don't go the free wood chip route because it's raw chips including all the pests and diseases the trees had, but some people don't mind it. The county also has free "wood chips" made from pallets. They last longer than the mulch and are good for walkways. The grinders have powerful magnets in the chutes that remove 99.9% of the nail pieces.
As for rocks, it's hard to get leaves and twigs out of it after a windstorm, and weeds grow in between the rocks as well.
This. I lived in one house that had gardens mulched with pea gravel and the builder hadn't bothered to put down cloth first. It was AWFUL- you couldn't rake or hoe it to loosen up the weeds. Some of the gardens in my current house did have cloth put down and then dirt on top of that, and the cloth eventually decays and tears- so even cloth with gravel over it isn't a good solution. Once you put down gravel mulch, if you decide you don't like it, it's a VERY difficult decision to reverse.
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). With mulch, it would be a little easier to work with.
