O.K. You have an entire yard to landscape and less than one day and $100 to do it. Can it be done? Yes. Do you need to sign up for Trading Places and risk your neighbours filling your yard with fake flowers made from mattress coils and spray paint? No.
My niece moved in with her boyfriend who lives just up the street from me. That move closer to me has provided us with lots of time for sharing things like my homemade pizza, my garden tools, my furniture and my advice. A couple of weekends ago she decided the grown up thing to do would be to landscape the front of their house a little bit. Hydrangeas and lavender were decided upon. I told her now all she needed to do was dig up a bed, stick the plants in and mulch.
Niece: Mulch?
Me: Yeah, you know, mulch. If you only do ONE thing make it mulch. Except the bright red stuff. Never use the bright red mulch.
Niece: Why?
Me: Because it's hideous.
Niece: No, why do I have to mulch?
Me: (a bunch of nasty swear words, fist pounding and head shaking, ending with me declaring ... ) YOU'RE NO NIECE OF MINE!!!
After I calmed down a bit I explained to my niece that the single easiest, cheapest way to make a home look landscaped is to put down mulch. Even if you don't put in a SINGLE plant, mulching will make it look like you did something dramatic.
Like you care about your home and are very particular about it even though you'd really rather dig out a plantar's wart than garden. (this isn't the case for me of course but some people aren't as fond of gardening as I am)
Mulching your desolate, dried out garden beds is like putting Spandex on a wrinkly old saggy body. It just makes everything look tight and put together.
I loaned her my edger to cut out her beds (which is why my garden beds aren't edged yet) and then ran out to buy some mulch so I could show her the difference it makes. The above shot is my garden bed without mulch.
Below is a bed with newly laid Spandex.
Tight.
I use natural, cedar mulch which is the same colour as the bricks on my house to begin with but softens to a more weathered, lighter colour once it dries out.
Again, before mulch ...
After mulch ...
It has a bigger impact than planting the entire garden with $10,000 worth of plants would have. All for the price of $30. 12 bags of mulch at $2.50 each. Once I edge the beds and reseed my tiny little lawn it'll look like I spent a lot more money and time in this spring garden bed than I have. Of course all the perennials have to fill out still.
As soon as I took these quick shots with my iPhone I sent them to my niece. Her response was ... "Ah, I see."
I was expecting a response more along the lines of "This is the greatest day of my life, my view of the world will never be the same, and in all my years of University I never received such valuable information. I bow down to ... " That kind of thing. Something more reasonable.
I still have a few bags to put down but that'll be done in no time this weekend. So if you have a sad looking yard and no money or energy to put into landscaping it at the moment, do your self a favour, grab $50 or so, head to a local hardware store or landscape place and pick up as much cedar mulch as you can fit into your car. Not only will it do great things for your landscaping it makes one hell of a car air freshener.
Why not black mulch? Even though I like black mulch and think it can look great with a lot of homes, it's filled with dyes and other things I don't want my chickens accidentally eating. Or the vegetables I grow in my front yard. I don't want them eating black mulch juice either.
This is the first long weekend to kick off the summer in Canada so I'll be off Monday. I'll see you back here on Wednesday with the update on my hinged hoop house, The Hinged Hoop House 2.0.
Have a good weekend!
→Follow me on Instagram where I often make a fool of myself←
Mary W
We use pine straw here as pine is a huge agriculture produce in Florida. The needles are bagged and delivered for less that $3 per huge bale. We add it every year and it looks so nice immediately! The slightly acid needles make our oak, azaleas and crepe myrtle look like stars. It breaks down into tiny black slivers of dirt and enriches the sandy soil. It is very prickly to put out but easy and quick to lay. We do it to cut down on weeds since we get so much rain. Even the garden gets its share. Speaking of weeds, I've become addicted to a morning cup of dandelion tea (from the flowers). It is so good and packed with vitamin C. Helps regulate my blood sugar and adds lots of iron and potassium. I pick 5 heads, pull the petals out, drop into a cup of boiling water and add a bit of honey as it already tastes like honey but needs a bit of sweetner. Also can pour over ice for iced dandelion tea. Please try before pulling them up or killing them - such a nutritious/delicious plant.
WestCoast Nan
Question, what do you put in the cup, the pulled out petals or the head/stem the petals came from?
Jessica
Thank you for the dandelion tea tip!
Jenny
We use natural cedar mulch as well--the color starts out a little startlingly bright sometimes, but fades to a neutral brown. Mulching goes a long way to hide the fact that my husband and I are not green thumbs. :)
We have been mulching religiously since we moved in about 5 years ago (it somehow disappears over the winter) and this year it came back to bite us--our mulch got compacted/matted (from over mulching last year? No idea, but I suppose so) and started choking the life out of some of our flower beds. So we (aka my husband as I am pregnant and not so bendy right now) have been raking up and disposing of matted mulch so that we can replace it with new, loose mulch that lets air and water through.
Etta
The very best mulch is cocoa bean shell mulch....but you have to live close to Hershey, Pennsylvania and be willing to spend beaucoup bucks. But when it rains or the sun shines on it it smells SOOO good. And I believe it is bugproof.
Pam'a
Actually, Etta it's available in Nebraska, and if you keep an eye on the sales, the price is comparable to wood mulch-- Plus, since the pieces are smaller, a bag goes farther than wood. DOUBLE plus: The smell of cocoa for the first couple of days!
Oh, and a thought about black mulch-- It absorbs heat. Not optimal for Midwestern summers. 😎
Tamara
I'm new to your blog and just found your 2012 front yard garden photos. Have you ever given out the plans for your tomato pyramid? I love it! I used coloured mulch only once - the dye comes out everywhere. Yuck!
Karen
Tomato pyramid? I had a tomato pyramid?? LOL. I don't remember! Oh wait! It might have been a lattice type thing I bought! I think I remember it. I didn't make it, I bought it on sale. :) ~ karen!
Kathy Renwald
I endorse this idea 100 percent.
Jan in Waterdown
Yeah but when yer kittie is named after it, that’s a given eh? 😉
Eileen
You can get a bag of mulch for $2.50????? Canadian????
holy shit. Maybe I'll rent a truck and drive up there and buy mulch to bring down here to the Mid-Atlantic where the crappiest bag of mulch (shredded construction garbage, anyone?) costs $3.99. My favorite ridiculous thing is "brown" dyed mulch. I think dyed mulch is the stupidest thing ever...why would you want to add unknown contaminents to your garden? Even if they are supposedly minerals and such...what does that do to soil composition as it leaches out?
Debbie
I know! $2.50 Canadian? Wow! I just got through paying $7.50 for a 2 cubit foot bag of mulch and I think I put down about 30 bags between my front yard, back yard and side yard and I have a small zero lot line property! I will probably be putting down a few more bags soon as I just finished putting in drip emitters on my whole property and unfortunately disturbed everything. However, the amount of weeding I have to do is about 10 minutes once a week and my plants don't get sunburned or dried out. Saves a ton of our precious water as well.
For those of you who don't have the backs to get mulch in your yard (I am getting there rapidly), there are places that will pipe it in for you (they do it on playgrounds on the time). Expensive but it can be done (or hire a garden company to do it).
Also on the question re: cedar mulch attracting termites, it generally doesn't. The resins in it tend to keep termites away along with other bugs. Cypress mulch does the same thing as well.
-Mel
We use soil conditioner (basically wood chips chopped up really fine) as mulch. We get it for $2.97/bag, the volume discount for 30+ bags, at Home Depot here in North Atlanta. It looks great and last so much longer than the pine straw mulch common in this area.
Karin Sorensen
Dear Karen,
this is the greatest day of my life, my view of the world will never be the same, and in all my years of University I never received such valuable information.
I bow down to you, Empress of the Getting Shit Done Universe, Queen of Awesome. You are my inspiration, my muse, a constant reminder to stop whining and and get fluffin' going already.
Like that? :0B
Have a great weekend
Karin
Karen
Yes, exactly. Something like that. LOL. ~ karen!
Traci
Here in PA, I'm a fan of pine bark nuggets. I think they look beautiful and they do a better job for me at suppressing the nonstop assault of weeds we get here. With regular mulch, it takes at least a solid 6"-8" to have any effect on weeds. With the pine bark nuggets, 3"-4" does the trick.
Donna Maxwell
I am huge fan of mulch! I have an arborist in my neighbourhood who will deliver it for free so that is even better. Makes my yard look amazing, keeps the weeds down and my dog cleaner. Even have the husband on board....finally
Paula
Do you have Sweet Peet in Canada?
It’s a brand of partially decomposed mulch which does not rob the soil of nitrogen.
Excellent stuff.
As for leaf blowing- the mulch “ knits” itself together over the summer forming a penetrable web-like “cloth”. The leaves can be raked (or blown) sacrificing some, but not all, of the mulch. Just be careful.
Great post!
Marna
Looks good! I use mulch to help keep moisture in the soil mostly, and it sure looks nice. :)
judy
I want mulch-I am old I don't drive but I must have me some mulch,also some sleep.....please
whitequeen96
Wow! That certainly does look a lot better! But I have a question; can cedar mulch provide a home for termites?
I had them once before and had to move out for a couple of days while my house was tented. It was expensive, and people thought it was because I had roaches! I definitely don't want to get termites again!
Karen
I actually have no idea! We don't have a ton of termites where I am in Canada. But I can say that anything like leaves or mulch that's directly against the house can provide a place for insects to live. ~ karen!
Tara
Yes, I used to use the same cedar mulch but had to switch to rocks because of termites.
Tina
Cedar, real cedar, repels bugs. That's the whole point of old cedar chests. But I get my shaved cedar from the sawmill. I think the crap in the bags is mulch painted cedar color. Real cedar smells good.
Christy
I didn’t know that about black mulch. I will def switch to the cedar color.
Btw, when I was a kid I thought my mother made the word mulch up. Lol.
Brenna
OMG! Thank you!!! I’ve been debating whether I should throw some mulch on the grass covered mounds around my house. Wondering if it’s worth the effort. Apparently the answer is YES!
So, question...
If grass has taken over my beds, can I just cover with mulch or do I need to....weed? Ugh! Can I just blast it with a propane torch? Or cover it with weed barrier?
Karen
You need to weed I'm afraid. How you deal with it depends on what kind of grass. Is it regular grass or Quack grass (that grows from rhizomes)? The only way to kill the grass without weeding is to cover it with cardboard or something, and then lay down around 7" of soil on top of it and then the mulch. Soooo, probably weeding is easier. Once you weed the grass you can put down the mulch. Weed barrier doesn't really do much for stopping grass from growing, it just pokes right through it. ~ karen!
Debra Johnston
One thing I've found can work - and save A LOT of effort - is to put down a thick layer of paper and then the mulch. The paper is enough to keep the weeds down and the paper eventually decomposes. You can use newspaper (3-6 sheets/layer) but I use the paper bags the charcoal we use in our barbecue come in. Thick paper bags should work too. It's not a permanent solution like landscape cloth but helped me dramatically cut down on the forget-me-nots that were taking over EVERYTHING. With grass, a bit of weeding might help. And I will find out because I have one bed out front with exactly this problem. Good luck.
Brenna
UPDATE! So, because I am lazy and hate weeding, the paper suggestion got me thinking...what if I just dump my grass clippings on top of the beds? If it works, awesome, I don’t have to weed or haul my clippings. If not, no biggie, can’t look any worse. So....i tried it and it worked surprisingly well. After about the third application of clippings, the weeds were reduced by about 90% and I could just spend a few minutes on each bed pulling the persistent ones out by the root. They came out much easier because the mulch held the moisture in. Now, after dumping a whole summer’s worth of lawn clippings on my beds, they’re looking pretty weed-free. I’ll probably wait until spring to add some more attractive bark mulch on top but so far, this is a big improvement and I’m happy that I don’t have to weed-wack the grass and weeds from these areas anymore. I thought I had to share this lazy-person’s solution to badly overgrown beds with your followers. Here are a couple of after photos. Sorry but I didn’t think to take any ‘befores’.
Lynn
Sorry...with your niece on this one. Don't get mulch. It looks nice but what a pain in the @ss. What do you do in the fall when your beds are full of a gazillion leaves like mine. Can't blow them off, can't rake them off. Remove all the mulch? Where do you put it? Maybe cedar mulch is different than those awful chipped wood pieces?
Karen
Well actually, my niece sent me a picture a couple of days ago with her newly dug up garden bed ... mulched. Lol! I've never noticed a problem with raking leaves for whatever reason but regular mulch does lay a bit more like a flat carpet after it has settled than bark mulch does. Bark mulch remains more jagged and loose. ~ karen!
Ryan Nastaj
It's called yard work for a reason. Have some pride, and yes you can blow, take, pick up.. obviously you dont blow full power
Karen
O.K. Ryan, let's everybody calm down, lol. It's just mulch. I have a feeling the bark is more difficult for removing leaves from. I'll find out in the fall, because I just put bark down instead of regular mulch in my vegetable garden. ~ karen!
Lynn Clark
Thank you all for your comments! Didn't get All the Posts. Ryan, my blower only blows. Have 11 acres and hundreds of trees. This spring it took me 3 days just to move the leaves. Wouldn't even bother...prefer not to have grass but the previous owner thought an acre of grass was a good thing. Back on topic...will try the cedar mulch in the beds. You have convinced me. Thanks again!
Kara
I use pine bark mulch, the mini nuggets are what they're called on the bag. I never have a problem blowing leaves and pine needles off of mine. Once it's settled and been rained on a few times the mulch is pretty heavy and compacted. It still looks good, but it doesn't move around or blow away.
Toni
Blowing leaves OFF your mulch? Does. not. compute. Leaves ARE mulch! :) They will break down over the winter and feed the soil and become more mulch? I scour the neighbourhood each fall to steal other people's leaves to use as my mulch, lol.
Lindsay
Lynn,
I mulched my entire yard and I used sheets of cardboard underneath the mulch. I have never seen devil grass or any other weeds poke up. It's great.
Carole
Please don't use those chipped wood pieces. I opened a bag of them and they were full of termites. I had put down bags of them to spruce up the curb appeal of my home that had been mulch deficient and while it improved the looks it also created a termite problem. I had to rake out that chipped wood mulch and replace it with the cedar which is naturally termite resistant.
urbangardener
I love the look of the darker mulches and from what I've read the dyes are carbon and iron oxides that aren't harmful to the environment. But that they were developed to hide the contaminants? Every brand I read about has people complaining about finding nails, blue tape, bits of plastic (and presumably, treated wood) I'm in the city, there is 130+ years of garbage in my garden already, I'm not looking to introduce more! It's so depressing. You can't even buy undyed mulch at most of the shops around here. I don't love the color of the shredded cedar, but at least I know it's not hiding any fresh pollutants.
Gaeyl Kanter
Appreciate the concept of yard spandex . Thanks .
Lynn Johanson
I rebooted my computer and the pics came up. So it's not you it's me. (Where have I heard that before?)
Lynn
Lynn Johanson
None of the pictures came through for me.... I wanna seeeeeee.........
Lynn