Mulch is any material that you place on your soil, wood chips, leaves, compost straw, grass clippings, even stone. Far too many people today seem to think that mulches only come in plastic bags from stores, but mulches range all over. The newspaper you will be putting down is mulch and what you cover that paper with is also mulch.

What do you have that you can use? What you need is something to hold the paper in place and maybe hide it.