Mulch for perennials?

Hi, Group -

What are people using to mulch their perennial beds during the growing season? I've used shredded cedar bark in prior years, but I need to renew it now, and I'm wondering if there is something I'd like better.

Also, does anyone buy it by the truck-load? Pick-up truck? Dump truck? Would I get to choose? Anyone know how many bags a pick-up truck load would equal?

Thanks for your thoughts - Julie

Hi, JulieKane.
All I can tell you is that bulk mulch is sold by the cubic yard. One CY = 27 cubic feet. Bagged is sold by cubic foot. Do the math, lol.
Most landscape suppliers have a few mulches to choose from. Pick a color/texture.
I do a thin mulch with screened compost.
Andy P

Julie, I once went through the hassle of getting a truckload delivered and carted it all over my yard. I then did the math and realized the bags were cheaper (and much more convenient).
I like shredded cedar too.

I just asked a landscaper who is going to put up a fence for me about mulch, he said doing the bags cost about the same, easy to control,( cart the bags to where you need it.) I usually pick up 2 to 4 bags at Walmart each time I go.

I just use the bag mulch in areas that I want to look good! The rest of my beds get a dressing of compost like Andy does, when the plants fill in most of the bed, the compost can't been seen.

I buy the bagged bark, the black colored stufff is what I have been using for a few years now.

Buy black bagged bark, Big?

Booyah

We get our mulch from a local lumber company. They saw logs into rough-cut boards(which we've built our barns and sheds with) and they also have huge piles of mulch-hemlock, cedar, ect. For $40 they will fill up the back of your full-size truck bed. Don't know if it would have be cheaper than the bags but it was easier for me to drive the truck around to my beds and shovel it out of the truck bed, than carrying the bagged mulch. It really went a long way! ☺

I don't like mulch. It's a pain. For large gardens it's expensive. It mats down. As it breaks down, it becomes fertile ground for weed seeds to germinate. It can blow away and float away. I have been moving toward 'living mulch' - ground covers. Been trying a number of them. There is no doubt a good candidate for every situation from full shade to full sun.

I am trying a creeping thyme this year as an alternative to putting down mulch. I'll let you know how it works out!

Some gardens get compost and some have ground covers while the longest daylily bed (about 100') is under the pines so they get mulched without any help from me.

At one house, I had the men tearing down trees in the neighbors yard put a dump truck full of chips in my yard. The neighbor kids had fun sliding on the hill! It took me about a year to wheelbarrow it around the yard, but it was free. I took down an oak (hanging head in shame) at this house and have used all the chips up. Need to catch another tree trimmer with a truck full of chips.

Be aware that decomposing wood chips 'steal' nitrogen from the soil.

The worms eating the chips put it back.

When I removed all the ivy from the two attached brick planters in the courtyard I noticed an amazing thing - not a single worm. I added fresh soil and other amendments and then I added worms.

I buy mulch by the truck load. DH backs his Toyota Tundra up and the guy at Agway dumps in a bucket full of mulch for $23.00. The color of the mulch determines how much it will cost.

I used woodchip mulch last year...I have no idea what it was but it was a reddish colour and it came in bags...I found it looked nice for a while but everything got matted down and weeds still came through etc...This year I am not going to bother. I like the look of black earth as well.

Want more worms - use coffee grounds in the beds. Not the one you sleep in, of course. I've always had lots of worms in my garden, but I am on a coffee ground kick. Wish I had a Starbucks nearby.

I get coffee grounds a couple times a week. They now know me at Starbucks. I even buy something - on occasion.

I think I am the only person in the world who NEVER had Starbucks coffee! Believe it or not, I also have never been in a Walmart. Sheltered life I guess.

Are you in prison, victorgardener? LOL ; )
I don't know anyone that hasn't been in a Walmart. : )

Costco, yes, Walmart, no. Actually the closest one is about ten miles away in an area I never find myself in. I am NOT a store person anyway. The web was invented for me. Before the web, I shopped almost exclusively through catalogs. I have ordered once or twice from Walmart's website.

I save my coffee grounds to use. I try to support local businesses as warranted, but still go to Walmart once a week it seems.

I save my grounds too, but I definitely need more.

Our coffee grounds go to our kitchen compost and then out to the compost bins. I will try to remember to give the planters the coffee grounds for the next few weeks.

My mom, who works in a HS cafeteria, has been saving them for me. Aren't moms great?!!

Of course!!!!!!!

Thanks, everyone. Looks like it's back to the shredded cedar in the 3 cf bags for me. I've opened up some new beds this year and have a lot of bare soil to cover. Re: mulch matting down, it does but I fluff it with a garden fork periodically.

I like the creeping thyme idea, but how do you get enough to get going?

One more question: If I plant vinca minor for an eventual ground cover, can I mulch in the first year? How does the periwinkle root through the much?

Julie

What is the size of the garden you where you'd be planting the thyme?

Does size matter?

Definitely!

Julie, creeping thyme is very easy to start from seed, or just pegging down a piece of a plant to get it to root and then separating it from the mother plant.

One more question: If I plant vinca minor for an eventual ground cover, can I mulch in the first year? How does the periwinkle root through the much?

Julie, I'm no expert but we started a slope garden last year and we planted vinca minor and then mulched the whole area. This year we have found that it lasted the winter very nicely and has started to spread. The mulch doesn't seem to inhibit its growth. We have small plate sized areas of really pretty purple flowers with trailers growing out from the parent plant.
Chuck

I purchased creeping thyme form Bluestone. It came in a three pack. What is the consensus on cutting the plugs in half?

I'd prefer to layer it than cut it. As soon as the strands are long enough to pin to the ground it should root. Repeat constantly until you get crazy.

Bluestone is great--really high quality plants (even *I* haven't killed what I got from them, ha ha), and not that expensive. They have lots of different groundcovers.
How do you pin strands to the ground?

Also, has anyone heard of something called "enriching mulch"? I saw some, and it looked really finely shred, and maybe there was even some compost in it (not sure, though). Would that let fewer weeds through? And does it really enrich the soil?

You anchor it down. You can use a rock, a garden staple or something you dream up yourself.

Meg, do you plant the teeny plants they send in the ground or grow them in pots first?

I put them right in the ground. Last year I got an embarrassingly large quantity of plants from them, and only a couple things didn't make it (3 out of 6 armeria, and a couple echinacea that I might have mistaken for weeds).

Thanks, Pirl! ☺