We have Virginia marine clay here, so I do try to mulch every year. My favorite mulch is shredded leaves, but I like pines fines (very finely shredded/chopped pine) too. I only do the front yard since I can't afford to do the back which is almost all garden. The last two years, I have used the shredded hardwood because I have paid to have it done and that is what most of the companies use-fine pine is more expensive for them, I guess, since they don't use so much of it. I can't lift the bags any more and DH has arthritis so badly in his hands that I don't want to ask him to drag the bags around the yard. I do think the mulch keeps the moisture in and I always end up buying a few bags for the back yard even though it is a struggle.

The mushroom compost sounds interesting. I think compost is the best thing to use if your soil needs amending. Maybe I will look for some of that!

We have clay in the Dallas area, I mulch every year (sometimes twice), and it makes a huge difference! Not easy to spread, it's heavy work, but well worth it!

I mulch every year but since first laying down newspaper and cardboard topped with a thick layer of cedar bark mulch in my beds, only do another layer in trouble spots where weeds persist in growing through the original. I laid too thin a layer in my butterfly bed 3 years ago so that had to be done again last year. I had originally used newspaper but the weeds ignored it so last year I spread corrugated cardboard under the mulch. I should know in a few weeks if that did the trick.

I only do my front and side yards since the back is pretty much a wasteland of tangled vines and briars. It would take an army with heavy equipment to clear back there.

I have difficulty lugging the bags of mulch around the garden but I keep trying. I should use the wheelbarrow but it's generally down near the cellar behind the house because I use it to haul firewood inside for the woodstove. Guess I should wheel it up to the garage when warmer weather rolls around. I have a really cool wagon too but it's heavy when it's empty so it generally sits in the garage, unused and taking up space.

I count my blessings every time I sink a spade into the ground that my soil is sandy loam. My folks practiced organic gardening for nearly 50 years before I moved here. No matter where I dig there are fat earthworms.

Amy,

The people where I get my mulch and compost advised to alternate years. I guess the thinking is that you get a more balanced ecosystem in the soil (both bacterial and fungal colonies). Mike McGrath of "You Bet Your Garden" on NPR advises against mulching and says to use compost instead. The thinking there is that wood mulch ties up nitrogen as it decomposes, and there's some kind of shotgun fungus in some wood mulch that shoots icky tar-like spores.

Personally, I think that if you have some nice, thick compost you can't go wrong, especially if it's kind of a mix between mood mulch and soil. We get some compost for free from the municipal waste in our town, and the plants like it better than the mushroom compost, which is somewhat used up (by the mushrooms).

Hope that helps rather than confuses.

Megan

Amy,

I forgot to mention: If you are looking for a lot of mulch, many tree-trimming services will deliver a load of fresh wood chips to your home for free if you ask. They have to pay to dispose of them otherwise. If you decide to do that, make sure you ask that the wood chips be only from non-diseased trees.

Megan

I use chipped live oak leaves for some beds and pine straw for the rest. Most everything gets at least a bit of fresh mulch every spring.

I used to mulch the front beds every year with lots of shredded bark mulch. But I tend to try to plant everything quite close together, so after it all filled in I no longer needed to mulch. I'm at the point though where I should mulch with compost or the like to add some nutrients back into the soil.

In the backyard where there is still a lot of space between plants, my DH shreds oak leaves each fall and spreads a layer in each border. This has really helped keep down the weeds and the soil is getting very rich back there.

Yes. Rain and elements mess up the perfection of mulch every year, so I have to re-do it :).
I switch between pinestraw, shredded bark, mini-nuggets, soil conditioner. Whatever feels right at the time. Everything is organic, and feeds the soil. Besides, it looks neat, and considering my personality - it is a must! :)

I add a fine layer to pretty up the beds.

I add shredded leaves to the beds and borders in Fall and Spring, to help the soil, keep the weeds at bay, and like mary lu to pretty up the beds. Around the boxwood hedges I put down hardwood mulch because again it helps the soil and looks really nice. That disintegrates quicker than I like tho and I usually end up doing it twice during the summer.

Those of you using shredded leaves for your mulch - what do you use to shred your leaves?

I have been using one of those cheap lawn vacuum/leaf blowers, but it takes forever because the attached bag doesnt hold very much and has to be emptied every 5 minutes.

Is there a better way that is fast and economical?

mandolls, I use the same tool as you. Yes, that darn bag fills up pretty quickly doesn't it? I tried the lawn mower way of running over the piles of leaves, and that works ok but my mower grumbled after awhile. Would like to invest in a good chipper/shredder that one feeds with leaves and the shredded bits fall into an attached bag. I've read lots of reviews on many models and most are unfavorable unless you can afford a really expensive one.

Mandolls, dh & I tag team. He uses the mower to chip up the leaves them dumps them in my wheelbarrow so I can mulch. A bag just about fills it.

for my flower beds I like to topdress with triple mix instead of mulching. Triple mixes with some bonemeal is all I need. I love using well composed leaves as well. I've not used mushroom compost and I'm sure they are fine too. If they cost more, then I would skip it and use less expensive materials.

For areas I need to suppress growth and weeds, I would mulch them

BTW - you mentioned wood chip mulch. These are fine for areas you want to supporess growth. Use old chips not fresh ones because fresh ones are nitrogen grabbers. They can hinder the growth of plants in the area. Not a good thing.

We bought a Troy Bilt chipper shredder. We got the model that can take branches up to 2". But, it turns out we really use it mainly to chip leaves in the fall and spring. We have tons of oak trees so lots and lots of leaves. My DH doesn't even use the bag anymore. He faces the chipper up against rocks in the backyard and uses them as a backstop. Once he has a whole bunch in a pile he fills his lawn cart and carts them to areas of the garden.

It was a fairly expensive investment to overall only use it for leaves for the most part, but we used to spend hundreds of dollars on mulch each year before new areas would fill in with plants, so I figure it has already paid for itself.

What do you call "spring?" I don't usually mulch until the soil warms up a bit, and that is usually quite late in the spring.

One year, we had our yard "done," and they mulched all our beds with a steaming bark mulch on a day when it was about 85 (in May, I think). And everywhere the mulch touched anything living, it "burned" it. I think it was called sour mulch - nasty. I didn't realize exactly what was happening until I saw a couple of small chips in the middle of small circles of brown grass right there in the green grass. Everywhere the mulch had fallen on the grass, it killed it. Now I'm sort of scared of mulch.

I like the every other year routine. I do half the gardens each year, so I never have to do it all at once.
gramma jan