"For yellow tones use onion skins. Brown can be created using either fresh or brewed coffee grounds or tea bags. Reds can be achieved by using red leaves, beets, rose hips or even red powdered drink mix. Collect enough material to fill a large stock pot about half way." BOY, thats gonna smell good. And it certainly won't attract any animals...

Mulch is not only a great time-saver when comes to controlling weeds but it also helps stabilize the moisture levels in the soil and so cuts back on watering and feeds the plants as it decomposes. But the best benefit I think is the soil improvement you get from it as it decomposes - assuming you use one of the many great organic materials available. I use old hay, mostly because we have lots of it. Grass clippings - I could never get enough of those myself - but if you have them, use them. Straw is often mentioned in the discussions over on the Soil & Mulch forum here as the perfect mulch. I linked one recent discussion on lots of muches below and be sure to check out the Soil & Mulch forum here too for even more ideas. Naked soil should never be allowed in the garden. ;) Dave Here is a link that might be useful: What kind of mulch do you use...discussion

Never too much mulch on hand, but can be too much in one place as explained by other posts. You also can also top up your mulch in fall, but especially in the full sun locations your mulch might need topping off this summer. I just applied more mulch this morning to a spring planted bed in full sun that the 1" applied after planting was gone. My ground freezes & thaws several times throughout the winter season, so I'm careful not to pile on top of plants, but I can mulch around many with the leaf mulch. Some do better with conifer branches as fall mulch to protect the crowns from winter wet in my area. Your question was about leaf mulch - is it from last year's shredded leaves & composted into a nice earthy smelling brown? OR newly shredded from fallen trees? There is a difference. The newly shredded green stuff will need to cure a bit & dry out before use or it will be like fresh grass clippings... You can also bag up the excess (in black plastic, not burlap), put in an out of the way place, & save for starting seeds next spring as leaf mold. If truly just shredded leaves they will compost in the bags & be weed-free for you! I try to stash as many as I can & use the black gold everywhere in spring. Any extra can be used to build a huge compost pile in spring with all those extra green grass clippings when you have a shortage of browns to go with! Extra can be piled more thickly in paths, away from drip line of shrubs & trees, etc. Can cover with burlap or plastic to keep weed free for application in fall or when you are digging out & dividing to fill the holes back in. I love the tip about using a bulb planter to dig a hole where you want groundcover, then go to groundcover & use bulb planter to dig out a section, go back to the 1st hole & unload your groundcover, then go back to the other hole & fill with compost. Sounds more complicated than it is & you can do it in summer if kept moist (use more mulch!) I have spare mulch, but never too much because I end up using all my stashes in one season or another. Just be careful around stems of plants & you'll be happy with "too much mulch around". I even mulch potted plants in summer.

So exciting, foyer/entry with polished tile just completed today and a little more progress in the kitchen. Their target is to complete all tile floors (floors only) including 5 bathroom floors, laundry and mudroom/garage entry by next Thursday; fingers crossed. My son who just spent the summer with our daughter in Whistler BC, stopped by 12:30am last night before continuing his drive to Las Vegas where he'll spend the winter. He had not seen recent progress in the home. We all decided to head to the site around 1am and stayed there till 2am. I switched several interior and exterior lights, we experienced extreme peace and quiet, watching light reflecting off a very calm sea from homes across the harbour while standing on the rear deck. Silly me, I did not take any pictures. It was an amazing view on a serene night with no sound of bugs, frogs or the wildlife in the area; we are really looking forward to moving there soon.