i have large areas of my yard mulched. you have a lot of questions, i'll throw out a couple of answers/observations and let others take on the rest:
- you can significantly decrease the amt of mulch/frequency of refreshing by using black or brown landscaping fabric. i recommend it VERY HIGHLY. you can also use newspaper and (for areas with no plantings) glossy catalogues and magazines. (this winter i used all the christmas cataloges i was sent unbidden to block the weeds in a large area -- worked like a charm, and one less thing that needs to be trucked to the dump). i have a bed in full sun with landscaping fabric that i mulched lightly three years ago -- it still looks great. whatever you do -- overlap A LOT. at least 6 inches.
- i recommend mulching incrementally rather than all at once. spreading mulch is by far my least favorite gardening task -- it is HARD WORK. better to buy a couple of bags a month and spread it where it needs to go.
- the longer you have mulch, the less often you need to replenish. eventually you get rid of weed seeds in the given area. i have a couple of beds that i have had mulched for five years -- they hardly EVER need replenishing.
- consider layering an inch or two of leaves and yard waste under your mulch. less mulch you have to use, and it enriches the soil.
- consider using pine bark mulch. it's the least ecologically-harmful mulch out there (aside from free mulch from the dump)
- check for free trash tree and line-clearing mulch from the dump. i mulched a couple of areas with it last year. breaks down quickly, but, hey, it's free.
- i am slowly transitioning away from wood mulch to pine straw. it is SO MUCH cheaper and easier to spread. you have to block the weeds with newspaper.
-bagged mulch is (strangely enough) about the same price as mulch from the local landscaping company. it's also easier to handle. however, it's much easier to get a big load of mulch delivered and dumped near your site. it just depends on how much area you need to mulch.

I use bags of mulch because for me it is easy to handle. I haven't any place to dump the loose mulch and then I would have to shovel it in a wheel barrel and take it to the site I plan to mulch. A bag I can carry and just dump. It does break down, but that is good for the soil. I guess I just buy bags when I see it looking thin somewhere. For me, the landscape fabric didn't work, the weeds just grew on top of it and I couldn't use a hoe to dig them up or I would tear the fabric. But everyone's situation is different.

Last full garden re-mulch we did was after the 2004 hurricanes - 600 bags of cypress and pine bark nuggets, 300 bags of assorted sizes of river rock. I don't do bulk because I've no where to dump it.

Most of the mulched pathways are around 6" thick, the rest of the beds are 4" thick. The areas that get remulched constantly are outside edges of the garden where the lawn maintenance guy manages to screw them up or rain washes them gradually away. I've also begun to re-rock many of the pathways that were done with plain river rock which has now bleached. I'm replacing them with brown river rock which will hold its color better. Pathways - both mulch and stepping stone - get remulched every few years as they sink and settle.

before we hit water restrictions I put out 2 pallets of bagged mulch and after each hurricane in 2004 and 2005 I put out 2 pallets each time. Other than that just a little refresher here and there. I am past the point of weed control and just remulch when it blew away or to give it a fresh look. Before we hit water restrictions in City of WPB thick layer to help keep roots cooler and moist. I use bagged because if it were delievered it would make the driveway unusable til I finished spreading.

I guess I should have said why I was asking the question. We just finished landscaping two huge sections of my mother's front yard and put down 18 yards (yes, 18 yards!) of mulch. We used pine bark mini-nuggets. I had two deliveries as the first 8 yards didn't cover even half the area. This is the first mulch in these areas as they are new beds. The mulch alone cost over $500 and I'm kinda wondering how soon we will have to do it all over again.

$27 a yd is a good price especially if someone else laid it LOL, landscapers do charge up to $48 per yrd installed. generally a 10'X9' bed with 4" thick layer of mulch will take 1 yd. the thicker you lay the mulch the longer life you'll get from it to a point, 4" thick should go 2 yrs. too thick is bad for many plants thou, esp up close to the crown. bulk mulch is cheapest but takes more time to spread because of hauling it around. bagged is a bit more by the pallet but much easier to get around a larger area. ~ liz

Ill-Mannered:

Where do you get your pine straw?

Nancy

it's hard to find -- i get mine here in deland, right off i-4, at a place called volusia shed. i've asked around for other places to carry it -- it's apparently fairly hard to find a distributor. in all seriousness, one afternoon i'm going to some local state or county park with a rake and fill the bed of a truck with the stuff... one tree produces quite a lot of straw.

Thanks for the info Ill

Here is an interesting IFAS publication. Hope it helps answer some of your questions.
Kat

Here is a link that might be useful: mulching