"Jo Ann" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Sep 10, 12:21 am, sf wrote:

Bulbs will most likely push through. I have MANY flower beds that
were mulched with 3-4 inches of gravel/small stones, and the hundreds
of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, grape hyacinths, and crocuses planted
in the beds don't seem to have any trouble at all. In fact, a
significant part of my problem in removing the dratted stones is that
I don't want to disturb the bulbs (so can't just remove shovel loads
of dirt and sift it).

By the way, the stones do almost nothing to keep the weeds down. The
weed seeds find their way down to the dirt and the weeds sprout up
just as readily as the bulb flowers do. All the stones do is make
weeding a major pain (like it isn't enough of one already), requiring
every last little weed to be carefully hand plucked. I predict you
will regret mulching the bed with gravel.

Jo Ann


Thanks for the inputs. I'm looking for something that is low maintenance
as a mulch that doesn't require
me to wash, sift, replace, etc... every couple or so years. I think maybe
for the bulb areas, I'll look at doing some
sort of ground cover with a few shrubs for the summer/fall timeframe but
still think I may have to go with the Pea Gravel
for the other beds (largely perennials) given my desire for low maintenace
mulch. Thanks again folks for all the inputs.
Cheers,
jlc