Read what Kimmsr wrote again. It's right on the mark. "The best mulch material to use is that which you can get at the least cost..." Check things out around you. It's amazing sometimes what you will see and find and get if you ask. All my leaves get blown away in the fall, but a mile down the road my neighbours will gladly give me their leaves. One neighbour has a nice stand of pine trees. He used to rake underneath them and throw out all the needles until I asked him for them. All I do is supply the garbage bags for them and go get the bags. My neighbours on the opposite side of the road use to complain about the seaweed washing up on their beaches but now they don't since I go get it for mulching particular beds and for my compost. I collect used coffee grounds on the way home every day. The owner of the establishment where I get them from cut his organic pick-up fee by 1/2 and is most pleased to see me. The following is mulch which I created with used coffee grounds (UCGs), pine needles, and shredded leaves. The following is a photo of the gardens where it was applied. I never had to weed this area the whole season. :O) Mind you, I weeded before placing the mulch and I don't do the newpaper things to snuff any weed seeds, but placing a good 3 inches of this mulch works well. If the plants were further apart or I was not introducing new plants to the gardens all the time, then I might be inclined to put newspaper down. I must agree with those who speak negatively of landscape/weed fabric. One experience in my parents' gardens showed me that it can be more of a pain than anything else. It provides no food value to the soil and will permit rhizomaceous weeds to creep underneath until they see a way out and by that time your problem is more than you'd like.

I agree with mulching. I worry about extending my garden beds due to the wild violets. We managed to pull the bulk out of the front bed, but it took an entire summer. My in-laws were visiting and bored during the day so would go out and dig down to the roots. They are persistent buggers! I have followed up this year by putting a second layer of thick mulch and taking any foliage off in order to starve the roots. Beside the stray leaf and weeding a lot before the mulch was put down, I have barely needed to weed. Whatever does grow through is weakened by having to push through the mulch. My lawn is almost 100% weeds dispite reseeding every Spring and Fall. I am planning on reseeding the lawn soon for the fall and then placing the feed pellets as an organic preemergent in the Spring. Might help with the garden, too if the lawn stops being one huge weed.... :)

Here goes, Bart. Lavender lass, I sure wish my garden had a few horses wandering around. Fenced from the garden, of course. That's what my property was when I bought it in 1978, a horse pasture with native alder, maple, hemlock and Doug fir. I rented a bulldozer and put in a driveway and cleared an area for a manufactured home. After that was done an acquaintance needed a place to store his bulldozer. My place was the logical choice. He said I could run it as much as I wanted as long as I kept it full of fluids. After a couple of years I had dug 12 ponds and cleared a lot of land and started growing plants for my landscaping business, focusing on the not so common plants and buying the more common ones wholesale. I propagated them from seeds and cuttings. Made a lot of trades too. Along the way I kept planting trees and shrubs for myself and slowly phasing out the nursery beds. Most of them went through several moves before they found a permanent home. Now, after 35 years, I'm doing a lot of editing. That means cutting lower branches off some trees and sawing down others. I'm even turning the larger rhododendrons in to trees by pruning them to look like trees. Lately I'm concentrating on planting more groundcovers and enlarging and redoing a rock garden. Every so often almost every part of the garden needs a reshuffle. That's the fun part! I really enjoy my neighbor's horse in the pasture next door. He also raises a couple of Angus each summer for beef. Lavender lass, there IS country on this side of the state. ;-) Mike...from Peone Prairie near Mt. Spokane

Quack grass is a very invasive grass that spreads by both seed and rhizomes. There is some indication that Quack grass has become immune to the glyphosates. The only method of control I have found effective is to dig out all of the rhizomes and place good barriers between where that grass is and where I don't want it to be. Janet Macunovich, in her book Caring For Perennials, suggests using that plastic carpet runner as a barrier, Many other plants we call "weeds" seed in quite prolifically and will need constant attention no matter what we do. Mulches help some, but are not the complete answer some seem to make it appear, since many of those unwanted plants will germinate and grow in the best mulch. Recognize what the unwanted plant looks like quite early in its growth and get rid of it then, but constant attention is necessary to keep these plants under control.