That's 95 bags of mulch distributed fresh each summer!

    

Seven yards -- the equivalent of 95 bags of mulch -- were delivered by
truck on May 20 and carefully dumped in the driveway.

    Mulch, mulch, everywhere with no bare soil to see...

    That's our yard, which is about an acre in size and has something like 13 gardens. These gardens are surrounded by large cobblestones which hold the fresh mulch, every year.

    I ordered seven yards to be delivered by truck and dumped in a big pile in our driveway. We drove our cars around the pile for a couple of weeks before it was diminished enough to shovel remaining mulch off the concrete. 

    It was delivered on May 20 and I finally finished up the pile June 11-12. Some excess has been stored on our property.

    It is an investment but the benefits are clear: 

    1. Mulch makes it harder for those hated weeds to grow because it reduces sunlight available to them.

    2. It helps the soil to retain moisture; good for the roots.

    3. Mulch also moderates soil temperature to keep it warmer at night and cooler during hot days. That makes the roots of flowers happy; important to gardeners like me who heavily invest in annual flowers.

    4. It protects bare soil to reduce erosion and soil compaction.

    5. It protects the soil from winter freezes, thaws, and wind. 

    6. It can be used to protect some perennials; I pile it up over my mums, for example.

    7. Importantly, it also makes all areas of the yard uniform in appearance.

    8. It provides a good physical work-out when a gardener applies mulch!

    Husband Steve is a mulch master. He uses our newish wheelbarrow (which he doesn't much like as it has two wheels and isn't as nimble as the one-wheel variety). He takes a pitchfork to spear the mulch pile, which is equal to 94.5 bags. (Online calculations are that it is cheaper to buy mulch in bulk rather than in bags, but not everyone has a place to dump the materials.)

    I've occasionally invested in colored mulch: Black makes a nice contrast with the plants. I recently learned that the most environmentally-friendly material is the basic brown chipped mulch (without added dye.)

    Steve loads the mulch into either the wheelbarrow or the wagon on his tractor, drives to the various gardens, and spreads it around.

    I help, of course. I think the more mulch, the better at controlling the hated weeds, but according to the Old Farmer's Almanac (https://www.almanac.com/types-mulch-advantages-and-disadvantages-mulching) it is best to pile up no more than 3 inches of mulch.

    You don't want to pile the product right next to a tree trunk, either. That can promote insect damage and rotting bark. 

    I "cultivate" the mulch monthly: I take my handy three-tined cultivator and rake the mulch around the plants in a flower bed. That turns it over, gives it air and keeps problems like mold at bay. It also looks pretty.

    Some other benefits of mulch, according to the almanac: 

    1. It prevents crusting of the soil.

    2. It keeps soil from splashing onto leaves to reduce the chance of a plant getting a disease.

    3. It eventually helps to improve the soil if you use organic mulch. When we built on this home site in 1992-93, the soil was heavy clay. It ended up we removed the clay, added good soil and mulch. That's made a huge difference in soil quality.

    4. Mulch keeps plants (think tomatoes and melons) clean and off the ground, which again helps to reduce the chance of disease.

    5. When mulch is placed around tree trunks, it reduces the chance of the trunks being injured by lawnmowers.

    The top benefit, to me, is the attractiveness of mulch which actually might improve the value of your property. Curb appeal is important to 71 percent of homebuyers, according to a 2013 survey of the National Association of Realtors. A Virginia Tech study shows that attractive landscaping increases home value by 15 percent.

    To sum up: Mulch is affordable, attractive, helpful to the environment, and it gives the folks applying the materials a fine workout.

   Applying mulch is an easy decision, isn't it?

Brown mulch has been added below the Linden tree along the driveway

No mulch is on this part of the driveway.

This is what the driveway looks like
after the bushes were trimmed and mulch added.