Natty_Dread wrote:
Hi folks! I planted my first gardens last year and mulched over both
of
them with stuff I got at Lowes. The garden in the back yard has pine
bark
nuggets and the one in the front yard I covered with a shredded mulch
(which
I believe was cypress) that had been colored a rusty reddish brown (I
used
it because it matched my shutters :-). Needless to say, after the
winter
we've had here in the DC metro area (zone 7b for me in Northern VA),
the
mulch doesn't look too pleasant. So, I'm wondering if I can turn the
soil
over and till the mulch into the beds and then mulch again on top, or
should
I rake up all the mulch that's there now and replace it with new? Any
suggestions for me? Thanks in advance!


In the areas where the old mulch was thick, but just looked bad, I
redistributed it to places where it was thin, or to the out-of-sight
parts of the beds. Then I put a thin layer new stuff on top.

Of course raking it out, some of the old stuff came to the top, but that
just means I never get those couple of weeks that it looks brand new,
and go right to the nice, but not excessively fresh look that it'll have
later in the season.

If you really want, you could rake up the old stuff, compost it, and put
down all brand new decorative mulch. It'll look fresh and brand new for
a couple of weeks, but by mid-summer it's going to look the same as if
you just refreshed the top layer.

--
Warren H.

==========
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.