Mulch Day!

Yesterday my third load of mulch arrived. I love mulch day, it gives me something to focus on until it is all spread throughout the yard. The exercise is a major bonus. I’m guaranteed to be using all of the muscles in my body and spending some time outside.

The reason I have had three loads of mulch delivered is because there is a really cool program here called the home improvement project. It is a group effort between local organizations to improve the water quality of the lake we live close to. They provide training and technical knowledge then once the project is complete they will reimburse up to a certain amount. We should be able to cover all the costs to mulch as much of our yard as wanted as well as plant a bunch of native plants to make our yard prettier… oh and they pay for temporary fencing to keep deer away from all the new freshly planted baby plants that I will be planting next week! That’s a whole nother dilemna to solve. How to plant over 80 plants within a reasonable amount of time of getting them here and make sure the deer netting is up in time to keep the deer away from them.

Anyways, mulch… The first load was 12 yards of course bark. This is the same stuff you would see at playgrounds. That load took forever to distribute because I laid cardboard down first. The plan was that between the cardboard and the larger pieces bark that weeds wouldn’t make it all the way up to the surface. A few have still snuck through, but considering we went from full on grass to full on mulch I’ve been surprised with how few. Once I finally got those 12 yards distributed, I ordered another 12 yards. This time it was a black bark to make the yard look prettier and finish getting the depth of bark needed to properly keep process water flow and ground/plant hydration. Apparently grass isn’t a very good filter, but the more natural broken down wood does a pretty good job of filtering. I was about 3 yards short of covering the yard with what we had, and rather than going through and trying to remove mulch from other parts of the yard, I ordered another 5 yards of the black bark to finish the job. Yes you read that correctly, I ordered 5 yards even though I only needed 3. The mulch company only delivers a minimum of 5 yards, and to get reimbursed we have to have a minimum of 4″ of mulch over the entire area so it made sense to just get more and then we could make sure it was fully taken care of. By the end of this week we should have at least 4″ of mulch over all the space of our yard that needs mulch. I will share pictures of the full journey after all the plants are in.

I’m so grateful to live in an area that is putting their money as well as time and energy towards solving as many problems as possible and not putting just money or just time or just energy. Each little bit makes a difference. Now it’s time for me to do my part and put out the last five yards of mulch.