Has anyone replaced the mulch around their house with something else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is mulch a fire hazard?

Wood burns. Stone doesn't burn.

Funnel how I’ve never seen flaming beds of mulch.

I have, both in North Carolina and Georgia, both during droughts. If someone accidentally flicks a cigarette into a dry mulch pile, it's not good.

[Anonymous]

Those stone beds only look nice in the first week, and in advertisements. In no time at all, the transferred heat from the stone will kill everything except the crab grass, which will flourish.

Agree with everyone else: plant ground cover. You'll need to mulch it and water it for the first year or two while it get established and spreads out. I went from using 8-10 bags of mulch in the first year to deter weeds in between my intentional planting, to using zero bags of mulch this year, three years on. All the plantings have grown and taken over the space. No mulch, almost no weeds. And it looks really pretty, if I may say so

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those stone beds only look nice in the first week, and in advertisements. In no time at all, the transferred heat from the stone will kill everything except the crab grass, which will flourish.

Agree with everyone else: plant ground cover. You'll need to mulch it and water it for the first year or two while it get established and spreads out. I went from using 8-10 bags of mulch in the first year to deter weeds in between my intentional planting, to using zero bags of mulch this year, three years on. All the plantings have grown and taken over the space. No mulch, almost no weeds. And it looks really pretty, if I may say so

What ground cover did you plant?

[Anonymous]

Rock and gravel doesn’t work. I tried it. Weeds grow between the rocks and then it’s impossible to pull them out. It only works if you have no plants near the rocks because then you can just pour hot water or vinegar over it and not have to worry about killing anything else.

[Anonymous]

I love pea gravel. It's so classic and elegant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rock and gravel doesn’t work. I tried it. Weeds grow between the rocks and then it’s impossible to pull them out. It only works if you have no plants near the rocks because then you can just pour hot water or vinegar over it and not have to worry about killing anything else.

Not true. Our gardener uses some kind of bi-yearly treatment on the pea gravel and he barely has to weed anything. I do not like him to use roundup so I know it is NOT that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is mulch a fire hazard?

Wood burns. Stone doesn't burn.

Funnel how I’ve never seen flaming beds of mulch.

I have, both in North Carolina and Georgia, both during droughts. If someone accidentally flicks a cigarette into a dry mulch pile, it's not good.

You hang out with smokers? Yuck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those stone beds only look nice in the first week, and in advertisements. In no time at all, the transferred heat from the stone will kill everything except the crab grass, which will flourish.

Agree with everyone else: plant ground cover. You'll need to mulch it and water it for the first year or two while it get established and spreads out. I went from using 8-10 bags of mulch in the first year to deter weeds in between my intentional planting, to using zero bags of mulch this year, three years on. All the plantings have grown and taken over the space. No mulch, almost no weeds. And it looks really pretty, if I may say so

What ground cover did you plant?

Mine doesn't fit the current (laudable) trend of native-only plantings, but it sure is thriving in my deeply-shaded yard: I have assorted vinca minors. Aka periwinkle. It doesn't spread as aggressively as ivy, it doesn't choke out the other things--- I have a lot of ferns and hostas and hellebores, and they coexist nicely-- and it does pretty little purple flowers in the spring, and occasionally throughout the summer. It creeps rather than climbs, so it's not threatening my larger plants the way ivy would.