Mulch your Flowerbeds like a Professional!

Spring time is one of our favorite times here at Blue Duck Lawn Care, mainly because it means mulch season!  Spring flowers are more than colorful.  Flowers, perennials to be specific, symbolize new life, vitality, abundance, and excitement.  Excitement that a new season is here and we need to make the most of it.  It also means there is work to be done in the yard.  Lawn care work is not always everyone’s favorite thing to do, but great curb appeal makes you feel better after a long day at work.  Mulch is a corner stone of a great landscape.  As you read this article, we will explain the process Blue Duck Lawn Care takes to professionally install over a 1000 yards of mulch at clients homes all over Indianapolis and the surrounding areas.

6 Steps needed for Professional Installation:

1. Plan your mulch boundary.  This can be done with either a garden hose or spray paint.  Most homeowners don’t have spray paint handy so using a garden hose is a great option.  Our mulching crews use spray paint when creating or extending flowerbed.  This is done so the edge remains smooth and flows well.  This planning step is the most important steps in the process.  Watch this video to see how we do it at Blue Duck Lawn Care.
2. Dig the bed’s edge.  As you will see in the video above, you will be creating a 3 inch deep V-Edge.  The edge is very important to provide delineation between the turf and where the mulch beds begin.  It also prevents the mulch from flowing into the yard when it rains.  Using a flat head shovel is the easiest way to create to smooth bed edge for your landscape beds.
3. Now that the edge has been created, you will need to clean up the beds.  Start by removing all weeds; dig them out by the root.  You will need a small hand shovel to do this job or a landscape knife.  If you pull them and the root stays in the ground, they will grow back! Now is the time to trim any necessary shrubs.  If your shrubs need a haircut, it’s best to do it prior to laying the mulch so the final product looks much better.  Rake up all the shrub cleans and dispose of them properly before moving onto the next step.
4. Once the edging has been created and beds cleaned up you will need to put down a pre-emergent.  Pre-emergent’s help prevent weeds from growing.  A popular pre-emergent you can find at many home improvement stores is called Preen.  Follow the instructions on the product and put it down accordingly.  DO NOT USE WEED MATTING!  Weed matting will make your life very hard in the coming years.  Stay tuned as we will be coming out with a YouTube video on why we avoid the use of weed matting for mulch beds.
5. Now that the preen has been spread over the soil, install the mulch.  We recommend bulk dyed product (black or brown) instead of bagged mulch.  Bulk mulch has compost in it which will serve to feed your plants and shrubs during the growing season.  Compost is a great source of nutrients.
6. Make sure not to mulch too closely to the base of your plants or tree’s.  If you do mulch too closely, the plants will be susceptible to root rot and eventually lead to the plant dying.  Mulch volcano’s are a big NO NO.  Watch our mulch volcano video here.

Where to buy bulk mulch:

We have a number of different sources for bulk mulch depending upon what we need for a client and comes in many different varieties and grind sizes.  We always recommend using dyed mulch products so the color lasts longer during the season.  Many dye products are now made of vegetable coloring so that it is safe to use in landscapes.

Here are a couple of our favorite suppliers:

• Fisher’s Mulch
• Greencycle
• Tiffanies Lawn and Garden Supply

Do you need help?

If this seems like too much work or you would rather just have someone else make your landscaping look amazing, feel free to contact us to help with your mulch installation needs.  We provide mulching services for the northern Indianapolis area (Broad Ripple, Meridian-Kessler, Meridian Hills, Crows Nest, etc).  We also service Fishers and Westfield now as well.  You can reach us by calling 317-748-3153.  You can also submit an estimate request on our website and someone will be n touch with you to schedule an appointment to measure your mulch beds and provide you with an estimate.  We would love the opportunity to show you why we have such a great reputation!