Rick, I understand completely where you are coming from. I have very large gardens and spent a couple years mulching it all. Now they all need it again and I'm wondering if I will move forward with all that mulch again. First, have you checked the following places for cheaper mulch, the city, any of the tree removing companies? I have a tree removing company that will come out and dump one of their large trucks of mulch for $42. You are right, it does not go far. I did what you've come to the conclusion of. I worked one bed at a time, mulched it, planted it up and then moved on to another bed. I think that is a terrific plan, if it were me, I would not waste the amount of time it is going to take you to place ground covers in all your beds, it is GOING to be more work. They do still get weeds under the plants and especially because it takes 4 or 5 years to get any real growth on them. Regarding your method of digging in your grass. I'm a little worried about that because you don't want grass to grow up through your conifers. Grass roots are pretty aggressive. I have clay soil too, when I started I hoed my gardens and seriously broke hoes from the cement the rain created (this was before I learned about mulch). Here is a cheap suggestion for you. It may not look as nice but it was very cost effective for me and a great way to get started when I was still spending TONS of money on plants to fill in my large gardens...Take your grass clippings and use them as mulch. Put it on real thick and that will also mat down during rains and assist in weed control AND most importantly it provides wonderful tilth to your clay soil. Also, during the Fall, I collected tons and tons of leaves and placed a thick layer of them on my gardens too. I don't know about your area, but in town they people will rake or mow and place their bags of leaves and grass the curb, I would come buy (in the cover of darkness because I was a chicken) with a pickup and trailer fill it up and spread it on my gardens. People would tell me if they used weed killer it would kill my plants, I never lost one plant. Also, they say you should chop the leaves up but I did not do that it worked so well for me. Once you are no longer buying the number of plants you are now starting out, then you can concentrate on purchasing wood chips and come back around and place wood chips over your grass/leaves. I think you are doing an awesome job making sure you know where all your beds will be, how they will meander around your yard. If I were you, I would just keep mowing the beds as you currently are until you get one bed at a time done and start using the free mulch you already have on your property :). I think you are going to have one beautiful yard once everything grows. Keep moving along, I love how you are so forward thinking and asking those questions up front. I wish I had done that as I would have eliminated a LOT of mistakes. Good luck.

I've planted just under 10,000 seedlings of conifers on my property, at a latitude essentially identical to where you live, the 45th parallel, to be exact. We never water, or do anything else for that matter. It's just impossible. I'd love to have nothing else to do but tend my trees but in truth, I have virtually no time for that. I will say, when I first started my project, back in 08, I did, with help, mulch and water the trees at planting. It almost killed me! A couple years ago, we put in 6000. The land where those were planted had been in Roundup-Ready corn the prior year. Silly me-I thought following corn might give me a nice clean planting for a year or so. Wrong! The area simply exploded in annual weeds, mostly lesser ragweed. Now this was a wet year there and the "lesser" ragweed grew head-high. When I'd drive my car down through the lane, clouds of pollen rose up so thick you could hardly see! I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not. But just one year later, all of that annual weed junk is gone-by me doing nothing-replaced by perennial native forbs and I suppose, still some junk grasses. The forbs are commonplace but decent plants like Canadian goldenrod and various asters. And the trees are doing great. I actually think leaving all the junk growing around them may have helped. BTW, these are not Christmas trees, but will be allowed to grow to their genetic potential, for the most part. Some thinning will likely be needed, perhaps as soon as in 15 years. Beyond that, it will increasingly be my kid's concern, not mine. +oM

I DO NOT RECOMMEND CHIPDROP COMPANY. They delivered full of un-chipped branches, big logs, leaves, twigs and barely wood chips that we could not get a shovel into the pile to move the giant mass of garden waste from our front house. I emailed Chip Drop to no avail. It is definitely a scam because it is unethical and unprofessional service. Local companies charge $700 to clean up the whole mess they made.

If used only as a mulch, I'd lean more towards the wood chips, as at least in my area, they are available for free. Free is good :-) There is also some leeway involved with the interpretation of "arbor" in the product name. All arbor means is it relates to wood - the material is apparently shredded wood fines - but provides no info on the sourcing of the wood. It could just as well be recycled scrap wood as it is anything gathered from the activities of a tree service or from actual arborists. That would cause me some concern unless clarified. If used as a base ingredient for a durable potting medium or if incorporated into the soil as a planting amendment, then I'd opt for the nitrolized sawdust/chips, simply because it/they have been treated to offset any expected nutrient deficiencies present when wood products become mixed with soil. btw, there is no patenting involved with this product at all. And it seems to be endemic to just parts of California. Also this product is not intended to be a fertilizer or nutrient supplement, merely as a mulch or soil amendment.