I have previously not thoroughly mulched my garden because of the large slug population (meaning lots of large slugs) in my area, but try different methods each year. (There's already a LOT of iron in my soil, so I go sparingly with the iron phosphate- plants can get too much iron!)So I have tried the various "in between" methods you have mentioned and my parents alway put their mulch in the paths, not directly around the plants. They grow amazing veggies... mine are fine, but theirs are amazing! Mulch is good. Sometimes it brings pest problems if certain other things are happening too. :) And some mulching materials are better than others for different areas, as others have said! So, if you were to ask "how much of which mulch should I use?" I think the answer would be "what are you going to grow there, what are prevailing weather conditions in your area like, and what do you want the mulch to do for your garden?" Don't you just love a question that is answered with a question?? But then once you answer those questions, you can probably get concrete answers (although you will still find many diverse opinions! :) ) Cheers! Sunni

Well, the party line answer is clearly both, and obviously for me too, there is enjoyment of the process and the results. I think that must be true for any gardener who is involved in the making of their own garden space and who isn't getting paid for doing it. But I find that as I get older and farther down the garden path, I would like to enjoy the results more, and I find that the process itself can sometimes be tedious, expensive, require too much patience, and overwhelming. So I am going to be brutally honest here -- while I enjoy the work of gardening to some extent, if I could hire more people to do more things for me and just enjoy the results myself, I would do it. The problem is that, for the most part, if you are a real plant geek like I am (and a whole lot of others who responded above), you can't really hire people to arrange plants for you in the way you want them. So there is a certain amount that you have to be involved with yourself. Being involved again in the creation of a new garden, and having left a mature one, I have to say that so far, I enjoyed the mature one more. The last few years I spent there I did work a lot in the garden still, of course, but the proportion of time spent just enjoying the garden was greater. That doesn't mean that I was sitting when I enjoyed it. It doesn't mean that I didn't pull a weed or two when I walked with a glass of wine in the evening. But after 20 years working on that space, the garden felt "finished" to a great extent. That doesn't mean that there would never be anything new. But the garden had a certain cohesiveness that is certainly lacking in my new garden. It also had as much seasonal interest as I could pack into 2/3 acre in my rotten climate. So, weather permitting, the garden always had moments of great beauty and enjoyment for me. But then again, I know that one of the reasons the garden meant so much to me is that I had spent 20 years making it. I had watched the trees, shrubs, perennials that I had planted get moved from one place to anohter (NAY he says, "I MOVED them from one place to another"...) until they finally found a place that they (and I) liked. Still garden making takes patience, and it is hard in the early stages not to want more results, with less work at garden making. I think that's one reason why, relatively speaking, I did not take many pictures of the new garden this year -- in the last year I was at my old place I took over a thousand, this year less than 100. A reflection that the garden was more about process than results, so far. One of the greatest times of garden enjoyment I ever remember in my old garden was after a big garden tour. The weeds were all pulled, the plants all relatively pristine (it was mid-June), the crowds were gone, my family and the dog were gone, the walks and drives all neat and clean, no cars or other distractions to be seen. Then I walked through and enjoyed my own garden, for a couple of hours, nobody but me and the hummingbirds and butterflies. One of the best times of garden enjoyment I ever had, along with very early foggy mornings and late summer evenings. Give me more of those, and less back-breaking work, any day....

Kim said... >My original obsession was outrageously out of hand and I loved it. [...] I'm keeping to the level area as much as possible. Weeding that slope is offensive enough without having to traipse up and down, sliding on every other step, to maintain anything down there. I know I will resent the ones which go on the slope and will eventually allow them to go the way of the Dodo, so I'm choosing to rid myself of them, instead. That's a LOT of roses, quite a few of which are seedlings either generated through my obsession or those shared with me by other "obsessives", but that is what it is going to take to keep this "fun", doable and prevent the water requirements from eating me out of house, home and desire. Weeding through them to maintain those which are just happier to be here with me and those which are endangered, has been a real chore. Now, if there was a ton of level land with high ground water. Hi Kim, Back in the Dark Ages we lived in California in just the sort of spot you are conjuring up as a high ground water fix. But native trees really like spots like that too... and our house had lots of shade, too much shade for most roses. Still, we wouldn't have dreamed of cutting down a tree. We didn't own the house, we like trees, and anyway, removing a tree was illegal without a good reason for a permit where we lived (a Monarch Butterfly preserve). Anyway, we were relative youngsters at the time and didn't know just how wet that property was until our vegetable garden was swimming in water during the winter months. It was fine, fine black silty sand that held on to the water pretty well too. Your post made me think about what we'd do if confronted with your lack of water problems back in California again. What you're doing makes a lot of sense. But I also am wondering whether a bank full of Renaes rambling around might not survive and also keep the weeds down once they proliferated and established themselves? They might take over the other remaining roses, but if you weren't still trying hard to keep those... A bunch of Renaes might not require so much watering once established? I don't think a big crowd of them would look bad at all, depending on personal tastes, of course. In fact, I prefer that kind of look. We've done that crowded thing in a pretty good sized area with azaleas and rhododendrons here; they all grow together and if there's a weed under there somewhere, well, you can't easily penetrate to find or see it. Once in awhile there's a tree sneaking in that will have to be pulled up, but basically it's too shady under all the plant thickness for most weeds to grow. And I adore the looks of those crowded plants! No, we don't have big problems with fungal diseases, even with the crowd. Maybe fewer than average problems, though phytopthera wilt sometimes does require some cutting back of rhododendron limbs. You know a big problem with azaleas and rhododendrons is that they aren't drought tolerant. Well, we have lost huge numbers since our drought problems began big time here around 2001. It's been wonderfully rainy most of the time during the last couple of years, but the next drought period is probably just around the corner... and if we lose some more azaleas and rhododendrons then, well, I'm thinking of trying to establish some Renaes and Annie Laurie McDowells in their place in the relatively sunnier spots... along with some more camellias, which are drought tolerant after the first year. (Though blooming is less than ideal if August and September are dry.) We lost our Annie Laurie McDowell to Rose Rosette Disease last year, but I am figuring that if it's anything like our Renae here, well, it's as no-care, no-worry a plant as any other plant of any kind we've ever had in our yard. Not a touch of blackspot or any other disease here thus far (though that may well change just a bit as we get more shade as the sun angle changes during the fall). Anyway, I'm hoping for another Annie Laurie McDowell eventually too. Ours is a no-spray all-organic yard for everything we grow and Renae fits well into that way of doing things. I think Annie Laurie McDowell will too. I know it hurts to cut back some on what you are able to continue doing, Kim. But I keep thinking mostly about your achievements and how much you have helped so many others in what you have already contributed. Thank you! Best wishes, Mary

I was reading this old thread. Some are not around here anymore, but I see jolj is...greetings gardening friend. I'm still gardening here in Indiana. I have amended most of the three gardens. with sand, local peat moss and add partially rotted manure, very finely chopped leaves, and chop up residue in situ. The crops grow very well. Yes, I have a tiller. It does some weeding, it prepares a row for seeding, it tills into the soil amendments and organic additions, and I tend to ridge up many of the rows for spring planting. It's not that I want ridged rows after planting, but that the tiller leaves them just right after the row is planted.