Good afternoon!

We have a steep slope that runs across the front of our house. Last year we paid for a fairly large project clearing two large beds and planting them with Vinca Minor. The vines just started to take hold this year.

We hired the same company to come out and do some spring maintenance - today they weeded around the Vinca Minor (cutting some of it back) and covered the beds with a thin layer of mulch.

Here's my concern/question for any experienced gardeners - they covered the ENTIRE hillside with mulch, including the Vinca vines - as in, there's no green showing through on the hillside, whatsoever. They said that because it's a thin layer of mulch (only about 1 inch) the Vinca will pop back out in a couple of days.

Given how expensive the project was last year, I'm concerned that this is incorrect and will kill the growth that just started.

Does anyone have experience with maintaining/starting Vinca groundcover and do you know whether or not it is OK for the plants to be totally covered like this? Should they have mulched AROUND the Vinca instead?

Thank you!