If you have a fenced in yard, just getting the mulch into your yard is hard work.

3 yards of mulch will about 40 bags.


on average a good landscaper will spread about a cubic yard of mulch per hour...

worst part of spread mulch is the shovel/scoop into the wheel barrow (hard on back) and seconded only by the trip of schleping the mulch one wheel barrow (maybe 3-4 bags) at a time...

We got ten yards for our 3/4 acre lot. That was three weeks ago. My husband and I are still chipping away. I'm 32 weeks pregnant, so not a lot of help, but I try.

Omg. I like reading this website, and I always knew everyone was totally out of touch with reality....but I never fully understood HOW out of touch until
Reading this thread. You people are ridiculous. Go to Home Depot, throw some bags of mulch into your suv and just do it! I have never felt more superior to anyone than I do right now, cause I AM great (that's right, great!) at mulching. I am a god. I may have gotten an epidural, but I bought and loaded and layed 35 bags of much help last week. Snap.

Insipid our yard. It took several days, an hour or more each. But I only had a shovel for awhile until my mpneighbors took pity on me and brought me wheelbarrows.

I am a 40 something woman, who was in reasonable shape.

I pay the Boy Scouts to do it every year. They deliver the mulch one day and spread it another. Best money I spend in the spring.

I also suggest bags and doing it in pieces. I usually redig the edges of the flower beds one day, and then weed, prep, and mulch the beds in portions on several weekends. It does take about a month, but I only spend a couple of hours working each day and I don't hate it quite as much this way.

Anonymous wrote:We used 9 cubic yards. It took 4 professional guys 8 hours each to do it.

My husband and I spend 6-8hrs to do 12cubic yds. It is a ton and we are sore, but he likes the exercise. He hauls in the wheelbarrow and I spread. It's basically a full day with few breaks, working quickly before the kids get home from pre/school.

We buy bags and end up with about 90 bags each Spring. It's a LOT of work and takes DH and I all afternoon but we do it ourselves.

Each year I think I should be able to mulch all my beds but each year I only get a portion done.

For me, what takes the longest is bed prep -- which is mostly weeding and ideally edging. The laying of the mulch goes quicker but I can get fatigued pretty quickly.

I have to do the beds in phases. I'll weed and mulch one section before moving on the next - usually over 2 weeks or more. If I try to weed and prep all the beds first, then by the time I get to mulching the last beds - some weeds have popped back up. Doing it in phases means that bagged mulch works best for me - since I don't want a pile of mulch on my driveway for weeks.

I once hired a company to do all the weeding, pruning and mulching and it took 2 strong guys 10 hours to do it all.

If your beds are in good shape and already have a decent layer of mulch, it should go quicker.

Anonymous wrote:OP It really depends on how strong and fit you are. If you can easily fill a wheel barrow and roll it onto the yard without too much trouble, and then repeat that 30 times, its not a problem. That would take us about 4 hours. Make sure you cover the mulch when it rains -- very heavy when wet.

I work out a lot and am overweight, but very strong and active. Still sounds like a huge task for someone who is pressed for time.

OP It really depends on how strong and fit you are. If you can easily fill a wheel barrow and roll it onto the yard without too much trouble, and then repeat that 30 times, its not a problem. That would take us about 4 hours. Make sure you cover the mulch when it rains -- very heavy when wet.

With a toddler helping I would definitely buy bags.

OP here. How hard could it be? Sprinkle a little here, sprinkle a little there... done.

But seriously, thanks, everyone, that amount of mulch does sound like a really big project. I bought pansies one week ago and still haven't managed to get them in the ground. I had my toddler "helping" me get the yard cleaned up, which was eventually a success, but did not get to the damn pansies.

Maybe I will buy some bags, that way I can do a little bit at a time.

This post took longer to write than mulching does.