Using mulch in the garden has many benefits. It helps control weeds, meaning less work for you. It helps to keep the ground moister, meaning you have to water less, thereby conserving water. I’ve listed a few of the many choices below. A Pinterest search will bring up a plethora of mulch pictures. I’ve included a few pictures of the mulch we’ve used our gardens over the years.
Mulch
Grass Clippings – puts lots of nitrogen back into the soil, use just cut grass and layer about 6 inches deep. As long as it’s deep enough, the grass won’t start growing. The picture below is the grass clippings between the fences we grow green beans on.
Bark – store bought, or gather your own
Rock – different kinds – my inlaws use lava rock in some of their flower gardens. It’s lasted for years
Hay, straw, or dried grass – You don’t have to layer dried as deep as fresh cut grass. 3 inches or so will stop the weeds. Gather your own dried grasses, or get hay bales from your neighbors for free when they take down the fall displays in their yards.
Newspaper and magazines
Brown paper bags, or packing paper
Rubber
Cardboard
Nut shell mulch – a great option if you have nut trees
Sawdust – A frugal option if you know a woodworker, or live near a saw mill. If your town or city shreds Christmas trees or when they trim back the trees in your neighborhood, you can often get the the shredded trees for free.
Branches or twigs – break the pieces as small as you want, or leave them longer. You can do this by hand, although a chipper-shredder will make the job faster. I don’t have one, so I do it by hand. That’s why the twigs are longer. lol
Shell mulch – a perfect option if you life near a beach
Pinecones
Pine needles
Leaves
As you can tell from my pictures, I prefer the more frugal, natural options for mulch. Whatever mulch you choose, you should put something under it, instead of the mulch directly on the ground. Using the store bought black weed barriers that are available, newspaper, or cardboard, will help to control the weeds better. I also use magazines under the mulch. If your using natural options for mulch, using a barrier underneath it will extend the life of the mulch longer than putting the mulch directly on the ground.
The natural mulches are cheaper, and will put nutrients back into the soil. The rocks, rubber mulch, or shells won’t to be replaced as often as the other mulches.
The mulch you choose will depend on your budget, the look your going for, and your goals for the mulch.
For more Farm & Garden posts, please visit:
Bloomin’ Tuesday
Fertilizer Friday/ Flaunt Your Flowers
I enjoyed your informative post, Linda. We use pine needles as they work well, look great, and we get them free from our neighbor! Rock is real hard to dig in…there was a lot of river rock in our gardens when we moved here.
Hi Linda, I L-O-V-E mulch! We get a big dump truck load each spring…but I have to say that it’s getting harder and harder for me each year to work so hard putting it down. But I still love it all. All my flower beds benefit greatly from it. i never thought about putting down old magazines under the mulch. Thanks for the advice!
ますます多くの西洋の販売人員を意識し始め、英語やフランス語と日本語の間の言語障害ではない。ブレゲ-スーパーコピー しかし、それは最初からミスの腕時計ブランドにとって、影響は巨大な。中国では、お客様に覚えてあなたの洋式の名称が難しい。一方、一度名前を覚えて、なかなか忘れられなくても、公式の名称。例えば、Hublot年以上前に自分の中国語の名前に「ウブロ」（Heng Bao）から「宇船」（Yuけん）は、今は50％以上の検索を使ってのはその旧名。この場合の結果よりもあなたの想像以上にひどい：これは基本的に意味がこのブランド検索エンジンマーケティングの倍の投入でネット上でその人を見つけることができる。 http://www.newkakaku.com/lb5.htm
より高い終わり時計に適した、このように、ストラップサントーニの贅沢な靴屋によって作られています。これはいくつかの高品質の結果（臭い）が使用されている革。 シャネルスーパーコピー ステンレス鋼のモデルは、黒い革のバンドを特徴とします、赤い金の反復は、茶色の革のひもの上に来ます。あなたの黒い革のひもを得るならば、それはdeployantは、茶色のストラップが標準的な香りバックルを特徴としながら（レッドゴールドでではあるが）。 http://www.brandiwc.com/brand-super-9-copy-0.html
What’s up, I would like to subscribe for this web site to obtain hottest updates, thus where can i do it please help out.
Exceptional post however , I was wondering if you could write a litte more on this subject?
I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit
more. Kudos!
I was very pleased to uncover this web site. I wanted to thank you for your time for this particularly wonderful read!!
I definitely loved every part of it and i also have you bookmarked to look at new stuff
on your website.
I didn’t know you could use newspapers and magazines as mulch. That was informative.