If you can see the crowns to mulch around them, you can mulch. The professionals don't necessarily do things when they should because they have to do certain things simply when they have time.

Go ahead and mulch now. I would be doing it too, except I have a lot of silver maples that I know will drop their helicopters, as I call them, so I'm going to wait a while and put some down after the majority have dropped. Easier to get rid of them that way. Of course, I'll probably change my mind.

Karen

Generally the landscapers are mulching beds that have shrubs, trees and annuals in them. They have tools and equipment to make precise holes so they aren't messing the mulch up when they put the annuals in later. Perennials would most likely still come up through the mulch, but why make them work that hard? If you are mulching with hardwood mulch or putting a thick layer of anything down, I would wait until later in the spring or early summer. If you have a wet spring, your plants will drown as the mulch will hold excess moisture in. It's good to hold the moisture in the heat of the summer; but not in the spring.

My 2 cents anyway; FWIW

Mickie

you are comparing landscaping to gardening .. hence your confusion ....

ruminate on that ...

ken

I hate to have the perennials mulched in early spring, since this is when I like to dig them up and divide them!

I even rake out the mulch on top of the evergreens in early spring---to let the ground warm up.

For some reason, I associate mulching too early with fungal diseases, but I may be totally wrong.

I like to put down the mulch after that first really warm day, when I somehow think that all those nasty diseases that might lurk in the soil have been killed by the sun.

Of course, this means more spring weeding. When I have been pressed for time, I have mulched areas with trees and shrubs early.

However, in a mixed bed, wouldn't this be a problem since the perennials spread very quickly during the spring? Wouldn't this either rot their crowns or hinder their growth?

I would love to have some expert opinions on this, especially since it does seem that many people in the area where I live in zone 6 already have their mulch down.

Alicate,

What the landscaping companies are doing to the gardens they take care of may not necessaily be good for your gardens as the two are probably quite different in plantings. Also, the level of caring of what is in those gardens is very different at times. In other words, you have taken personal interest and invested your time and your $$ to create YOUR gardens, but they are taking care of gardens via contracts.

My take on mulch is to let the plants emerge and let the soil warm during which time I amend and weed then mulch. Usually this will take care of 80% of the gardens for the growing year. There is always that 20% which insists on growing weeds. :O)

The reason I do it after the plants emerge is that I add seedlings to the gardens every year after culling the plants that don't make the grade in the fall. Sometimes I forget where those newbies were placed so mulching too early might snuff them out, but if you know where your perennials are there is no reason why you couldn't do it at an earlier time.