Since we have plenty of leaves we mulch them with the mower and store them in bins of welded wire. By spring time they have decayed well enough to use as mulch or additive to potting soil. Or/ we put down newspaper in the fall in areas we want to walk on/ or don't want anything to grow/ and cover it with the mulched leaves. Straw also works well and so does pine needles which is good around hollies. EP

Like EP, we collect leaves in the fall, shred them and use them as fall/winter mulch or put them in the compost piles to decompose until spring.

During the warm spring and summer months, straw or hay are ALWAYS our only choice, and for what might seem like a silly reason, but really isn't. We live on very rural acreage (14 acres out in the boonies) and have lots of copperheads and rattlesnakes. When I used brown bark mulch, the snakes blended in too well, and I had too many snakey "close encounters". (This is the same reason I only put out leaves on the beds in late fall or winter when the snakes are inactive.) With the use of the hay or straw, a snake really stands out against the lighter mulch and I'm more likely to see one before I accidentally step on it.

I think the best mulch, though, if venomous snakes aren't an issue, is ANYTHING that you can find, especially if it is free. (A lot of my hay and straw is given to me free by local ranchers because it has been exposed to the elements and is considered "spoiled" for their purposes, but is fine for mine.)

Back when I bought and used bagged mulch, I always bought the very finely shredded bark, because the larger chunky bark would float away during a heavy rainstorm, because we live in a lower lying area near a creek, and we have a downhill slope to most of our land.

I will often collect grass clippers with the bagger when mowing and will put the finely cut grass clippings around plants in the flower and herb borders around my veg. garden, but ONLY if I am pretty sure there's not a lot of prairie grasses or wildflowers or weeds that have gone to seed in those clippings. If I think the clippings have too many seeds, I dump them on the compost pile.

If you want to avoid having weeds come up through the mulch, you might want to put down several layers of newspaper underneath it. The newspaper will stay in place until you get the mulch on top of it if you just spray it with a hose for a minute to wet it down. Eventually the newspaper will decompose anyway which will help "feed" your soil. I always seem to have more earthworms where I've used newspaper.

In areas where I remove grass sod to create a new bed, I always use one of the black weedblock fabrics in the new bed for the first 2 or 3 years. It really helps prevent the grass and weeds from taking over the new bed. I eventually remove it, though, so that the continual breaking down of the mulch can feed the soil.

Dawn