I recently celebrated our spring weather by having eight yards of mulch dumped on our driveway. It’s the same amount I had delivered in the fall, and I mulched many of the same areas again, added a thicker layer in places to help with weed suppression. Fresh mulch also looks really good, as shown below where the old and new mulch display together. I mulched around the herb garden, though I already have weeds poking through there – that’s because my main weed up front is the mint that refuses to stay contained. (This is standard for mint, the roots spread out.) In the back, in addition to the large mulched area with raised beds, I mulched all around the mulberry bush (shown) and the peonies, as well as between the magnolia trees along the back property line and the hibiscus plants (not shown).
Distributing eight yards of mulch in two weeks is certainly a gardening victory, but what jumped out while I was working was that I seem to have killed off the burdock that been popping up amongst the peonies since I bought this house. Burdock is one of those plants that produced annoying sticky seed balls that attach to everything. Apparently it has various edible bits, but I don’t think that makes it worth having in my yard, given how annoying it is. The roots tend to go deep, which makes it difficult to remove.
So I was excited at this little gardening victory: the realization while mulching around the peonies that there wasn’t any burdock. Don’t ask about the burdock by the raspberries… that may be next year’s weird little victory. I hope.