Manorman’s Weblog

Validation of My Mulch Gripes – We’re in the News!!

April 23, 2009 at 7:56 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Click HERE to check it out.

Mulch Alert! Mulch Alert!

April 4, 2009 at 7:12 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Caution…Caution…Caution – -

Read this post before you buy a load of mulch.

Last year, I paid a sh*t load for mulch and got a mulch load of sh*t. 

Don’t let it happen to you.

Every spring I’m ectastic, as the snow is finally gone, the birds return and in their full singing glory, and the tulips begin emerging through the barren mulch beds – barren mulch beds – one of the few ugly sights of spring. 

Although spring represents new beginnings, fresh starts, and re-births, it also drags along withit the ugly hangover of winter, with the naked trees, the cold, hard soil, and the dreary and baren mulch beds.

Each spring, the first step I take to re-vitalize my yard is to lay down fresh, new mulch.  I used to purchase it by the bag, haul dozens of the 50-lb bags from the store back to my house, position the bags strategically around my yard, then walk around the house and tear into each of the nearly impenetrateablebags as if were Christmas morning and spread the mulch around, while leveling it withmy foot.  Invariably, there would be a drastic difference in the mulch depth throughout the beds, such that my mulch beds were rarely the envy of my neighbors.

I eventually abandoned the bag approach to mulching and opted instead to purchase a large load of mulch and have it dumped in my driveway – the center of my driveway.  However, after losing access to my garage for 2 weeks, over-exerting myself nearly to the point of exhaustion, and having to offer up portions of my mulch mound to my neighbors for free just to get rid of it, this approach shared the same fate as the bag approach.

So, last year, I went witha new approach to mulching.  A shady character greeted my on my driveway and offered to mulch all my beds that day, for just about 10% more than I would have paid had I hired my reliable landscaper, and about about 40% more than both the bag and load methods of mulching.  Due to purely a convenience factor, I obliged and wrote the gentleman a large check.  Why not, mulch is muclh, right?

WRONG!  This mulch was infested with insects, mold, and some relentless vine-like weeds.  In just 3 weeks, all of our flowers had died, the beds were covered in a yellow mold, and the vine-like weeds had strangled all of our shrubs and literally choked the life out of them.

The $1,200 worth of mulch then cost me another $800 to have it, and the dead flowers and bushes hauled away, as well as another $2,000 for new flowers and shrubs, plus another $1,000 for quality mulch, which was eventually layed down just in time for the 4thof July – 3 months later.  The $4000 worth of mulch glimmered brilliantly under the lovely fireworks show.

It turned out that my mulch sellers were not local at all, but rather on a pilferage pilgrimage up from Louisiana with a truck full of lousy mulch that they were selling to poor saps like me who were willing to pay a premium for instant delivery.

So, word to the wise – know who you are buying mulch from, and get a reference from them.

I wish I had MindMyManor.com last year!