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Anya, NOW SEE YOUR PROBLEM WITH MULCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You're paying through the nose for the stuff. It should be free, and if not free, purchased by the cubic yard. I have not bought landscaping mulch in close to 10 years. When I have gotten it, I buy it by the cubic yard, and one yard will do all of my flower beds which cover a LOT of area. I can get nice black valley hemlock for $29/yd. Lately, I'm too cheap to even spend the money for that, so I get a load of tree trimmings from the road maintenance crews or the local transfer station. I even haul in leaves in the fall. Got 32 huge construction bags of them this fall, in addition to 2 pick up loads, and a 16' long trailer load. That's still not enough to keep this LAZY GARDENER happy. We bought a mulching bag for the lawn mower. All the grass clippings go in the lower coop level or on the garden. If you're concerned about weeds poking up through the mulch, and they will if the mulch is not good and thick, lay down a layer of cardboard or at least 10 layers of newspaper under the mulch.

However, I will pay for mulch hay, which can be bought for 1.50 - 2.50/bale. I find that indisenspensable in the garden. But, with this years bounty of leaves, and the offerings from the chickens, I won't have to buy any where near as much hay as I have in the past. (usually I get 20 bales, which will last all season. I consider it a very small price to pay in exchange for being (mostly) weed free all season.
 
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I will not plant any flower bed without the black landscape fabric! We have only 2 flower gardens right now (save for some bulbs around the tree bases and then one long one along the side of the house). One of those flower gardens I call the Dow garden (since Mrs. Dow gave me most of what is planted in it!) and it has the landscape fabric. The only weeds I ever get there are gold rods. I think they come up right where the fabric overlaps - maybe we didn't overlap enough - because they are always in a line/row. The second garden is known as the Mint garden, since when we planted there is was overtaken with mint. We were in the planting mood, and even though we didn't have landscape fabric, we planted.....yeah...see why it's called the Mint garden? I think I've finally got enough mulch on top of the mint, and pulled enough roots (if you get them when they are really tiny, they don't spread so much, and you won't disturb the other flowers much. I am planning at least 2 flower gardens this summer - one all along both sides of the road, about 75 feet each, and the other will be crescent shaped. Neither of these will have anything planted without landscape fabric!

The one negative I've read about landscape fabric is that eventually there is enough nutrients and dirt on top of the fabric for plants to grow...not sure if this is true. I buy mulch by scoop at the hardware store for about $30. Not sure how much is in that scoop, but it's a tractor sized scoop - plenty for what I need!
 
I find that if you weed really well and then mulch on top of it, it holds for a long time. We only use grass clippings (free) but we do have a grass collector on the mower. You need a ton, though. 50 % of our garden is black plastic (in the hoop houses), and we gradually mulch the rest as we mow, but there are always some areas that we don't get to which turn to field.
 
We did have landscape fabric in our raspberry and perennial area. It does eventually break down, making it almost impossible to remove weeds. DH ended out tilling the area with the tractor, and then we set the hoop coop on it so the chickens would keep anything from growing.
 
I can't use landscaping fabric b/c I have such a problem with ants. They move in and go crazy under the landscape fabric, plus the fact that I have such a hodge podge of bulbs, perennials and annuals in every bed.
 
I made it successfully through snowblowing the drive, but I ran out of gas in the back of the chicken run (about as far away from the garage as you can get) and do you think I had more gas? Nope. Had to pull the darn thing all the way back.
 
I'm wicked worried about my rabbits now. They all have outside pens (except for the mom in the basement with a new litter). They all have nest boxes with hay, and crocks for water. It's going to be COLD the next few days. Wish I could bring them all in for the week.
 

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