I am slowly working on the yard of the house we purchased last year. I have a great woods full of natives and a small bit of prairie I'm working on. There is a small strip on land that abuts my neighbors property that is also the border of my vegetable garden. The garden is raised with 2x12's and this area is fairly low so gets a lot of water. The neighbors side is covered with a wood mulch/chips of some sort with a few low shrubs and a river birch. This is on the north side of my garden so I'd like to plant some shorter sunflowers for moisture control as well as a bunch of bee/bird friendly things like butterflyweed, lavender hyssop, coneflower, blazingstar etc. The one issue is that the area is pretty weedy so I was thinking of covering the entire area with pine-bark mulch and then either planting seedlings or direct sowing in small cleared areas.

Any thoughts on this plan? Just wondering if the pine-bark mulch will do a good job with web control but still allow for these natives and other flowers to grow well? Too acidic as it breaks down?

This is a small area - about 30' long by about 5' deep.

Should I start seedlings for some of these plants (which ones) or just direct sow?

Any tips greatly appreciated!

Martha