we pay 18.00 for a bobcat scoop. We pick it up in a trailor. I'm not sure how much a yard is.

Around here you can get hardwood mulch for $10/yard if you don't mind large chunks. The good stuff is about $25/pickup truck.

I use pine needles. It's sold by the bale or double round bale. Usually $6/bale or $13/double round (equal to about 2 1/2 bales).

$14 per ton at the city landfill for twice-shredded, mixed wood mulch...very nice stuff as long as you can handle the odd bit of poison vine that might be in it.

Zip. Nada. Nothing. Zero.

We get our mulch free from the county, which operates a brush site, a place where we can take our brush, leave it at no cost, and they chop it all up three or four times a year. They have piles of mulch in varying states of composting, and some that has composted down to ......lovely black earth! They will load it for us at no cost, and they don't care how much we take.

It is a real gift to us. We appreciate it so much!

A yard is 36" wide x 36" tall x 36" deep. A cube that measures 1 yard on each side.

Janie

Oma-Gro compost is all I'll use, but I live local to where it's produced.

Per pickup load $9.00

* You load
* Bring your own shovel

I am in the Chicago area and that may be a little high, but not crazy if it is good quality mulch and that includes delivery.

I believe I paid $35 per yard delivered last summer.

Just to add on my 2 cents worth! Bagged mulch..Sherwood shredded hard wood is 4 bags for $10.00. Each bag is 2 cubic feet. This is in the Levittown area.
Joann

Well, this year, nothing - I used leaves. :) But when I've paid for mulch in the past, I think it was about $20-25 a yard. You can also get free mulch from Com Ed, but I don't have a pickup truck. If I get it by the bag, it ranges from $2-4.

I use the organic (as described) rotted leaf mulch from a local company - $21/cu yd. Admittedly, I do have my Garden Elves transport and spread it (a bit much for me - okay, I'm lazy!) and as my plantings mature, my ground space shrinks so they bring in less each year. This spring it took but 3 yds - early on they were wheelbarrowing in 8-10 yards.

This leaf mulch is very nutrient rich and breaks down to a deep brown, friable soil. I haven't added any fertilizer, just let the mulch do its thing. I think my specimen plants (fancy way to say trees) are the best testimony - they've quadrupled in size in but six years - I'm amazed and I've been watching them every step of the way. This mulch is really good stuff.

I don't pay for the mulch either, but I need to know prices for work. I get mine from the landfill too. Leaf mulch and wood mulch. The leaf mulch is what I used to build all my beds. I tilled a whole truck load into the tomato patch. This winter, I'll do the same in the other veggie areas. I'll start building new gardens in the backyard this summer for planting wintersown plants in February. It'll be just like the perennial bed now, few weeds, great soil, lots of worms.

I think I found a pretty good deal this year for hardwood mulch in Ohio. It was $20 a yd and if I bought 4 yds delivery was free. I might be one of the only gardeners without a truck, so free delivery was a good thing!

I always find the topic of mulch interesting as mulching seems to be a given in US gardening. Why do you think that is? UK gardeners sometimes mulch but it is not considered a necessity. A top dressing with home made compost is often recommended but it is aimed at improving the soil not changing its appearance. Is it fashion? Climate? Are US gardeners looking for a different effect? What do you think?

If I compost everything there is not near enough compost to mulch a tenth of my beds.

Mulching keeps your gardens healthy:
- keep weeds down
- keep moisture in
- feeding the soil, otherwise years of gardening would make the soil poor

I don't know anyone who thinks it makes a fashion statement.

I subscribe to RHS The Garden and they always recommend mulching and often have articles on different materials to use.

Without mulch my gardens would crisp up in no time in the heat. I guess your summer climate is cool and rainy so it is not an issue?

South-Central NH runs about $25- $35 a yard, depending on the color/style you want.

I don't know anyone who thinks it makes a fashion statement.

Unfortunately, there are those who use it for that very reason. When you see purple and gold mulch (LSU's colors) it's all about making a statement, lol.

But seriously, I agree that it's a necessity for many reasons. I even use mulch (pine straw) for pathways instead of grass.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sports Mulch

I saved two bales of straw from last fall and used that on my veggies & new beds. One was free from the neighbor and one was $7.
This year I I've been haunting Lowes for the broken bags that sell at 50% off -- shredded HW mulch & shredded pine bark is around $2.75/bag so a broken bag will be less than 2 bucks. I've been stretching that too by putting cardboard/newspapers down first as weed blockers, then thin mulch layer over.
Btw, I saw a sign at a tree service that said wood chips $10/yard.

PS. I wish I had a pickup too.

Pinestraw is a popular mulch here in the South, very contrary to what I was accustomed to up North, but it works here and is very common in large, naturalized areas like apartment complexes. You can buy bales at most every hardware/home center and an estate owner down the street from my son's house (out in the country), rakes, bags and sells it roadside, just for fun.

I use pinestraw only in my side yard (the work area and preferred puppy poop area - poop is much easier to spot and pick out of pinestraw, imo). Usually use 2-3 bales a year, but have found I can't buy it ahead and store it - it either molds or gets buggy.

The dyed mulches sold everywhere really turn me off. But, there is one house in my 'hood where the dyed stuff is a perfect color match for the berries on his shrubs and it is pretty - plastic, but attractive anyway in this setting.

This city does vacuum up fall leaves curbside and has weekly 'yard waste' pickup which, I suspect is chipped and added to the leaves - the whole concoction composts and is available to homeowners for free (or short $$). What I wonder about is the tranfer of plant diseases, bug infestations and the like.

Not sure where the rotted leaf mulch I buy comes from and have never heard of plant disease transmission via city compost ...... but, who knows?

Well, thanks to all of you showing me it doesn't have to cost an arm & a leg, I called around and am getting a dumptruck load of hardwood mulch for $125. Very happy!

I use mulch not for a fashion statement but b/c I couldn't possibly keep up w/ the weeds if I didn't.

Flora - good point. I don't use mulch. I do shred leaves with my mower onto the beds in late Fall. I then, come Spring, rake them off and into my compost pile. I hate, in any colour, the shredded cedar or whatever. My 'mulch' is many plants, close together. In Southern gardens, they use mulch to ward off evaporation. Many others use it to smother weeds. I find here, that 2 or 3 serious weedings will do an established garden.

Nancy.

Well, I know I'm a bit of weirdo , but I do have to import mulch - can't make enough of my own.

I have no grass/lawn on my property - it's all plantings, front and back yards - so no clippings to ferment/compost. Leaves do fall from my trees and surroundings, and unless they get too deep (the magnolias are really messy and sometimes problematic!), I just leave them to compost and then tuck them in w/the imported stuff.

Like Nancy said above, mulch serves to keep soil hydrated and stave off weeds ..... that's working very well here.

I just love my teeny, tiny corner of the planet!

Just some info concerning hardwood mulch or any wood mulch. These can potentially suck the nitrogen from the soil and so do be careful not to over use these things.

Oh - re how much I would spend -- maybe $2 per bag. Or if you have a chance to gather fallen leaves in a woodland area, FREE.

ianna

Mulch put on top of the soil will NOT steal nitrogen from the soil. Woodchips turned into the soil, like with a rototiller, WILL steal nitrogen from the soil. Mulch is put on the top of soil, feel free to use it and don't worry about nitrogen stealing.

Got the neighbor's pine needles which they'd piled up on the street for the city to haul away = free. One teensy detail: it was apparently LOADED with maple helicopter seeds from the same yard. I've been paying for my cheapness the hard way--on my hands and knees weeding!

We get free fine wood shavings, just shovel them into large plastic bags as many as the truck or van will carry. I buy alfalfa pellets and make tea to add to them for color (and extra nutrients) and sometimes mix in compost. Helps them break down faster. Makes a nice brown fairly fine mulch. I apply once or some places twice a year.

I have occasionally used grass clippings but don't really like the look and if I have any they are better used in the compost.

I use mulch so I don't have to water as much in our semi-dry climate but like a mulch that has nutrients which is why I make my own. Today is the first time it's rained in over 3 weeks and I've started mulching.

I guess I'm lucky DH is a woodturner so I have a never ending supply of dry maple shavings, makes great mulch, a friend comes to get the shavings I don't use for her chickens.
I have a solid mass of minor bulbs under our pink dogwood, never have to weed it anymore. When they've died down I lay landscape cloth on top of the bed, cover with shavings, looks neat all summer. In November I take the shavings off throw them in the compost bins, take up the landscape cloth, top dress with a little sea soil, all set for the bulbs to do their thing in the spring minus any weeds.
Soooo, if you know any woodturners, they are usually very happy for someone to take the shavings off their hands.

Annette

I just looked at what I wrote again and realise it could be interpreted as judgmental. It wasn't meant to be. I am genuinely curious about the different styles of gardening here and in the US. gottagarden, I'm an RHS member too so I get the Garden. I know that mulch is often recommended but going by what I see around me not many gardeners really bother with it much. I think that there are several factors going on. Firstly we have much, much smaller gardens so it is easier to keep on top of weeds. Our climate means that there is not such a problem with drying out. And because of our climate our greatest garden pests are slugs and snails which love lurking under mulch. And like Nancy's, UK gardening style is usually to fill beds entirely with plants so there is no space to see any mulch anyway. I have gardened for many years and although I spread compost every autumn I don't mulch as such. Now I AM going to be judmental though... coloured mulch sounds absolutely disgusting!

LOL Flora, I'd better explain about my "colored mulch" so you don't think it looks disgusting - the fine wood shavings we use are a very light yellowish/pinkish color (depending on type of wood) and look IMO awful in the garden when used as is. So I color them with alfalfa tea and compost which makes them a nice brown. They look just like the mulch others buy in bags but I know what's in them and it's all good for my mostly organic garden.

I was kind of avoiding this thread because I wasn't all that clear on the definition of mulch. As it turns out I don't really do much of it. I have a couple of bed edges that are not covered completly by plants and those I put bark mulch on until they do get covered with plants so they don't dry out so fast.
The rest of the time I am always putting whatever organic matter I can on/in the beds. Chopped leaves, horse manure, pond algae, wood shavings/sawdust, fire ash, minced clippings of spent flowers/plants etc. I figure I have to constantly be putting back in what I am taking out with all the plants. Other than that there isn't much turf showing let alone reachable to do mulching to.