Using mulch can do your garden a lot of good, and this is for several reasons. First of all, it’s a natural fertilizer that improves the quality of your soil by providing it with nutrients. Besides this, mulch keeps water in the soil, preventing evaporation. It also keeps weeds from sprouting. On the aesthetic side, mulch gives your garden a unitary appearance, keeping its neat and tidy look.
What Kind of Mulch Do You Need?
There are many types of mulches, from leaves and straw to tree bark and gravel. The kind of mulch you use depends on what you want to achieve. For instance, if you have flowers and plants, organic mulches, such as compost and manure, are a better choice. On the other hand, if you’re interested in creating patterns of orderly paths in your garden, you might want to use gravel. However, in both cases you need to ask this question before you start adding mulch to your soil: How much mulch should I buy?
How Do You Answer This Question?
1. You need to calculate the area of your garden in square feet. For this, measure the length of your garden, then the width, and multiply them. This way you get the total area that needs to be covered with mulch.
2. Then decide the depth of mulch layer. For flowerbeds, a three-inch layer is enough. The same goes for vegetable gardens. If weeds are particularly resilient in your garden and you want to keep them under, the mulch layer needs to be thicker, up to six inches.
3. Now you have to do more calculations. Take depth into account and multiply the total square footage of your garden with the depth of your mulch layer. For instance, if your total area is 500 square feet and you want a two-inch mulch layer, you multiply 500 by 2 and get 1,000.
4. Lastly, divide the result by one cubic yard. To do that you should know that one cubic yard means 324 square feet, with a mulch layer that goes one-inch deep. In the example chosen, 1,000 / 324 = 3.08. Round it up, and you’ll get 3.1 cubic yards. That is the answer to your question: How much mulch should I buy?
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