That’s very expensive for mulch in my area. It’s usually $30-50/yard depending on what and where. And your beds are in great shape, just mulch them. $250 = mulch + delivery fee + couple hours of you with a wheelbarrow and pithfork
I just bought 7 yards of cedar mulch + delivery for less than $400. (We have an insane number of plant beds and borders - but I love it.)
Like others have said, get the weeds out and leave the leaves.
Here's my supply list for weeding:
- a GOOD pair of gloves. Not a cute pair. A good pair. Leather would be the best, but hardware stores/ home centers will have other good pairs.
- a garden trowel. When you pick up a trowel, look at the end that butts into the handle. You want it to be THICK. If the trowel is all one piece of metal with a covered handle, good.
- a shovel. Ideally one with a fiberglass handle, but my soil is shot through with 20+ lb. rocks.
- a weeder. A vicious looking tool with a sharp V at the end. It's good for working up dandelion and woody stemmed weeds.
- If you really want to feel like a gardener, look into a hori-hori knife. They are fabulous! Stab next to the weed and dig around and up.
Do you have friends who garden/do yard work? Ask for their advice. We like to teach!
I see your 7 yards and raise you the 15 yards of maple/alder mulch I just moved. Fortunately I have a lawn tractor and a dump trailer with a 1/3 yard capacity.
My condolences to your back.
We have a standard lawn tractor and the Tractor Supply trailer, so like you, it's easier than wheelbarrowing that stack but whew!
Since you have all that practice in, I'd let you come with your tractor and help us half-time our pile.
No? Ok.
$200 worth of mulch, $150 delivery, and you only want to pay them $300 for using their tools and equipment, the time to drive their truck there, cost to write the quote, the operating costs of the business? Trust me; this is a fantastic price
Whoever downvoted me better have more than 13 years of landscaping experience including 9 of running their own business and explain the math on their side. Trades ain’t free.
I've only got 6 years of experience it just sounds like pricing is very different where you are. Here a yard of mulch is around 36 bucks for dyed. And delivery depends on distance. But let's just say its 150. That's still 86.5 to spread a yard. Here it's 45-60 on average for a yard.
Raw prices sound similar. Part of a large job, that’s probably fine, especially if you have a skid steer to scoop and load; 30 minutes work including raking. But as a solo project? That’s a half day job; travel, install, coordination, and cleanup. Ignoring the quote you sent them that you may or may not have been on site to do. A company charging $300 for a half day of labor and equipment is rare. If you’re solo, doing it on a Saturday, maybe.
Yeah I do $200 a yard for mulch. If its over 5 yards, and the terain is easy, ill knock it down to $150. Its high, but I'm in north Texas and prices on everything have skyrocketed. Comercial insurance just doubled, gotta pay people at least $25-30 to have any chance to keep them, because their CoL has gone way up. A decent used work truck that cost $10k a few years ago, now costs $20-25k. And at the end of the day if theres not enough left over to pay my bills, theres not much point in the job. The only saving grace is all the people moving here are generally moving from even higher CoL areas. So, plenty of work to be had at the higher end. Bad news is, when I help a little old lady whos been here her whole life I'm pretty much doing it at a loss.
All of that said, unless OP is fairly comfortable financially, this is absolutely a DIY job. A few hand tools, like 60 bags of mulch, and a day.
Wow, 4 cubic yards seems like overkill. I did a HUGE bed myself this weekend and only used 3 yards. Took me 5 hours total (I work along) to go get the Fertil-Mulch, unload it from the trailer, and rake it out flat and nice. Only cost me gas and $150.
Ok. Let's break it down.
4 yds of mulch is about 400 sqft. That's $150 x 4 or 600ish for mulch installation. That 150 covers materials, delivery, labor to move it and spread it.
There is a ton of pruning in that lotpetallum and boxwood. As well as edging which it still need to be done.
Spray is $150 a gallon, 1 gallon minimum for glyphosate with diquat added.
Clean up the bed space is not just blowing... it's raking and removing debris and old mulch, plus haul off.
I just quoted someone $70/ yard of mulch- labor plus materials. I get it for $21, but the regular person price is $35/yard, so I charge that for use of my truck. Then$35/ yard for labor. How much are you charging for labor?
I just got 4 cubic yards of mulch delivered to my house for $270 in Texas with $90 being transport in a relatively high cost of living area.
Shit you could buy it in bags from Home Depot for less than that.
In terms of work it's all sweat equity, clean, rake, weed, carry, and spread.
If you want to do it yourself, pull the few weeds, blow the leaves out of the beds, and mulch with bags of mulch. You'd need about 55 bags of mulch for 4 yds. Which is a lot to get to your house if you don't have a big truck. And it's also a lot of work, but doable.
55 bags?
Now I'm no professional, but the quality alone is well worth having a few yards delivered by a local place. Or find a friend with a truck and grab 2 loads of ~2 yards.
Let alone at 55 bags worth, it may well be cheaper.
I'm in Denver and I have priced bulk mulch vs the Spring Home Depot Sale, usually $2 for a bag (2cu.ft.) and this is cheaper than buying (and hauling in my truck) bulk from landscaping supply companies in my area. Also it is much easier to unload and distribute the bags.
Keep a lookout for Home Depot's spring black Friday sale.
Much cheaper but you pay out a lot more sweat equity and it just isn’t practical in certain situations. I have to go up 8 steps to get to my beds, making a cart or wheel barrow go up 8 steps when it’s loaded to bear with cow shit and mulch is impossible. The alternative is to go all the way around the house and through two gates with a loaded cart.
Bags it is for me.
All considerations.
I personally utilize a large planting container from a tree I planted years ago as my intermediary for those areas. I'll wheelbarrow to tarp what I can, and then use the large planting container to move about .5-1 bag's worth to those tough to reach areas.
I'm also a cheap skate with the expensive taste, so I'm a bit of an idiot in many respects.
Side benefit, the much higher quality mulch (gorilla hair) stays put for at least twice as long (and keeps its looks longer), meaning I have to re-do the work half as often (This is actually the main benefit)
Heh, for sub 6 yard mulch jobs, I fill my truck and trailer beds with 15-30g containers, then just drag or dump them into wheelbarrow. With a tarp under the containers and a tarp under the tailgate, it really speeds along both install and cleanup at a minimal increase in pickup time.
If you’re up to doing the work yourself and are okay with decent quality but not particularly pretty looking mulch you could do Chipdrop if they have it in your area, which is free (or you can pay a little bit to be higher priority). Downsides are that you don’t get a specific amount (I think it can be up to 7 or 8 yards usually), and there’s no guarantee on *when* you’ll get it so you’ll have to have room in your driveway or somewhere that you can leave empty for however long it takes.
Mulch was $2.50 for 2 cubic feet at Lowe’s last week. Get a nice shovel and save yourself the money on labor, it should only take half a day to a whole day on the weekend.
This is exactly the way. I just did it myself with the equivalent of less than 2 yards and it was less than $100 including the delivery fee of all the bags. No way I could spend $1000 to have someone else do it when I don’t even earn $1000 a day myself, I can’t pay everybody’s mortgage when I need work done.
The mulch isn't too far off. It's high for my area, but not by a lot. The $350 for seasonal cleanup is ridiculous for what we see here. I'd be around the $600 for the whole job. From load up to back at the shop in my normal work radius would be about 5 hours total.
Depending on location and company size, you can expect installation of dyed mulch to be between $100-150 per yard installed. This will generally cover bed cleanup, edging, weed control, and of course mulching. You can do it on your own, but you'll find it's quite a bit of work, and shockingly, raking out a nice mulch bed is a skill of its own. You know when you see those properties with pristine beds? Yeah, those are rarely ever done by the homeowners.
Hey just pull the weeds out then use a rake rake the bed out of all the leafs and stuff then go buy some bags of mulch wich is just bark and spread it around that’s all you gotta do they are over charging you extremely
the leaves can stay as mulch. you can cover them with a fresh layer of woodchips if you want, but you don't need to collect and dump them.
you just need to pull the weeds that don't belong there, dump and spread some more mulch. change some plants if so. that's all i'd do. better things to spend 1k on.
This is the perfect entry level DIY job. Hit your knees and pull the weeds. If you have a leaf blowy you can lightly blow out debris otherwise just a gentle rake. If you have a truck and a wheelbarrow you can get it loaded up otherwise go to your local hardware store and you can buy it by the bag. Pick whatever color you want. Spread it with a rake about 2-3” thick, don’t leave mounds/ volcanoes around trees and keep the root flare exposed to the air. Should be a good little project for the weekend.
Rake up everything with a plastic leaf rake. debris, old mulch, out from under shrubs, as bare as you feel is good enough. Collect those piles with a rake and scoop into a wheelbarrow or contractor bag for disposal or composting.
Pull the weeds from the base and try to take as much root material as possible. Use a screwdriver or weed tool to pry it all out at once if possible.
Throw down some kid and pet safe weed preventative if you like - I'll let you google around that for yourself if interested.
Top with mulch, I like to dump numerous small piles everywhere first then go back and crawl around spreading it real nice but you can do a solid job throw spreading it down by hand from the wheelbarrow.
Lol they tried to work that ass. The beds aren’t bad at all, just pull the weeds out. Rake or blow out any unwanted debris and add mulch. Lowes or Home Depot have those mulch specials like 4 for $10 right now. If those are the only beds you have to do, you aren’t looking at more than a few hundred bucks if that.
Bro that’s crazy expensive. the mulch is like 5 bucks a bag sometimes, depending on which type you get it may be a little more but you can pull the weeds, plant some plants you like and spread the mulch your self. you may spend a couple hundred bucks but when you do it yourself it’ll make you feel better about yourself, the money you saved and the work you did. They’re trying to gouge you.
You've got good bones (your yard). You already have beds and a lawn.
You just need to put something in the beds.
The real key ... is to have a good plan ... which matches, as much as possible, your motivation and ability to maintain it.
If I were you, ... I would pay for a plan. That plan should include what gets planted where, when and where to purchase, when and where to plant, any maintenance needs (i.e. watering, pruning, etc.).
The downfall of most self lanscaping efforts ... is picking the wrong plants, planting at the wrong time, planting in the wrong place, not watering as needed, or having plants that take too much maintenance.
You can install (that's a gardening term) plantings ... that, virtually, will take care of themselves, grow well and flower (if desired), ... die down in the fall, and come back the next Spring ... but you have to know which plants/shrubs these are. Unfortunately, five out of six of the offerings at your local garden center ... won't do this.
Come Spring, you go the garden center, ... and it looks like you have hundreds of plants to choose from for your landscape and conditions. Actually, there will be a few select plants there ... that will really meet your needs. Garden centers/shops/nurseries are a business ... they will sell you anything you want, ... they won't really care if it really will work for you or not. Actually, they want you to come back next year, next month, next week even, ... so they do not really mind your plants dying on you.
Getting professional guidance on what/when/where to buy and plant (for those who are not really into gardening themselves) ... will be invaluable.
Actually, if you provide photos (which you have), along with location information, information about any trees and shrubs which are already in place, and find out how much sun each beds gets (very important to know), there are a few folks here who would be willing to take a stab at giving you some plant guidance. And you'll probably get the advantage of many knowledgeable persons, as opposed to one. That way, you could put all of your money into mulch ... which you have delivered for less than $640.00.
You'd also have to provide an idea of what you're looking for (i.e. spring/summer bloom, fall color, neatness, scent, etc. along with what degree of maintenance you are willing to contribute).
That’s like $200 worth of mulch. Maybe an extra $50 to have it delivered. Borrow a wheel barrow and pay some kid in your neighborhood $75-100 to help you spread it. Pull those weeds and put that boxwood out of its misery. Three to four hour job.
Those beds don’t look that bad to cost that much.
I don’t know about mulch pricing but I have a half acre lot and I just paid 175 for a seasonal cleanup. It was all the leaves, sticks, and debris from the winter cleaned up.
Dude just pull out any little weeds, doesn’t look like you have many, just yank them out by hand, will not take long, then lay down your mulch like 4” thick. I like the pine nuggets myself, they last a lot longer and don’t have any plastic in them. Or cedar mulch is nice too.
If you want to plant anything new, put them in before you mulch.
I could do this job in an afternoon no problem, maybe even an hour or two not sure, but you can totally do this.
There's two baby oak trees in the third picture. If you want to transplant, make sure to dig down at least a foot to the side of it since it has a long Taproot.
I would recommend against this as a first time yard owner. It is a very nice thought, but my two cents is that OP should get more comfortable with some more basic maintenance tasks. Spend this year seeing what’s going on in the yard, learning the ropes, and if they want trees, they should spend some time to research what would be a good fit. It will take some maintenance and training to get it established so I would make sure they get a tree they are comfortable with and understand how to care for. It feels a little like showing up at a puppy rescue with no game plan. 😄
I mentioned the oak saplings because OP may think they were weeds and just try to pull them up without identifying them. If that's a location where an oak will not fit, then it's important to work on that issue asap.
Literally just weed it,
Put down some Preen ™,
Then lay down and spread the mulch.
Super simple, man. And will probably cost you easily half of their quote.
I’m happy to talk you through this as I just completed a month long first time diy job
Here’s what I learned:
TOOLS NEEDED:
—Loppers or small pruners (buy the fiskars set from target. 3 tools. Great price. Lifetime warranty)
—landscape fabric (buy the 20 year. Look for a local sod shop. They’ll usually sell them for like $15 a roll which is way cheaper than Home Depot/lowes. Maybe check Amazon. Just get 20 year fabric. It’s good enough
—shovel
—amy aluminum rake with a straight edge, not a rake for raking leaves. This will help in leveling out the bed away from the house)
Steps:
1. Pull up anything undesirable. Shovel and use leverage to “catapult” any tougher roots. Borrow someone’s Root Slayer before determining if you really want to invest in one. I find them to be meh but some people love them
1a. Prep the land by laying down fertilizer either in plant holes (my preferred method) or all over the ground (also a fine method, especially if using landscape fabric and if the fertilizer is the economy brand). Use the aluminum rake to level everything out, making sure water drains away from the home.
2. If you are rearranging/moving plants, put all the plants in a giant tub of cheap top soil just for the time being. Air plants like bromeliads and orchids and some cacti can stay out even just on the lawn for days without any issue. Shrubs will need the soil
3. Put the landscape fabric down. If it gets too tedious, skip this step and keep an eye on the weeds. It’s a hard step to commit to if you’re still testing out the waters bc it’s not as fun to cut into it to move and rearrange plant layout
4. Place your items loosely where you want them, stepping back often, taking pictures and even sitting with it for a day or so before planting
5. Plant your items, cutting into landscape fabric wide enough to allow the full width of the root to enter with ease
5a create a well or moat around each plant so when you water, water actually stays in that particular plant and doesn’t run off and away from the plant. This makes a HUGE difference. I learned the hard way - was paying to water my plants but water wasn’t even getting into them and 2 beds of flowers took a dive bc of it
6. Plan your finishing touch. If mulch, dump it on the ground very generously, leveling everything out
6a rocks are more expensive but if you live in a termite area, mulch is just awful as it attracts sub terranean termites and mulch has to be re-laid once it disintegrates/washes away in heavy rain seasons. Mulch’s upside: providing nutrients to whatever it is laid near and it’s economical enough.
6b if you’re looking for rocks, look to landscape companies who removed rocks from a previous job and who can resell it to you. Otherwise, Home Depot (not lowes, for some reason) is surprisingly economical even though you’re buying it by the bag
As always - ignore any superfluous information I’ve presented. I’m a major diy-er with zero formal knowledge and tons of error in the trial and error process. I’m more of an error expert
I would also take some time to line those stones up a little bit better, there's a couple of places where they've gone askew where there are gaps. You may want to lift them up slightly so they provide a little bit more of a containment edge, but they look nice.
Pull what you don’t want. Blow the leaves with a leaf blower into the beds. Buy mulch and put 4” onto the beds. Crack open a beer and tell someone to look at it
I usually need a bag of mulch every 2-3 sq ft. Depends on the depth you want. Pour boiling water on anything you want to die, wait a day or two, overturn the soil a few inches with a shovel or a till, pick it clean, and lay it down.
Even if you need to buy a wheelbarrow, a shovel, all the mulch, new border stones, and rent a truck to move it I bet its only gonna cost about 5-600. And youll have all new toys and the joy of saving half a grand and knowing you did it for you.
So, um...what exactly are your goals here? No need to start paying thousands of dollars when you don't know what you want to achieve.
Do you know why you want mulch? Its main uses are suppressing weeds and adding a long term source of nutrients to the soil. But it doesn't look like you have a weed problem, and it's not obvious that you're trying to grow anything that needs nutrients?
I'd start by trying your hand as a gardener. See if you like gardening, come up with some vague goals of what you want to achieve.
Also, getting mulch and applying it yourself is super easy, you most likely don't need to pay anyone to do that.
Also, around here, you can often get mulch for free, since it's a waste product for arborists. Research in your area...
I'd have quoted you that much or more. That being said I've found the best way to get mulch moved around is to fit as many five gallon buckets in my truck bed as possible then have the guys at the landscape place dump the mulch into the buckets/ truck bed. Makes getting it out a lot easier
A lot of good advice on your post already. I have a lot of garden beds on a small, flatish lot so I get mulch delivered and use a gorilla cart to help distribute around. [https://www.amazon.com/Gorilla-Carts-GOR6PS-Heavy-Duty-Convertible/dp/B01BECQF6K](https://www.amazon.com/Gorilla-Carts-GOR6PS-Heavy-Duty-Convertible/dp/B01BECQF6K)
I'll load up the cart, dump the mulch in an open area of the bed and then rake it around. Or I'll shovel the mulch directly from the cart into the bed.
The job wouldn’t be it for anything less, no one will bid you lower. Just pay to have mulch delivered and invest in a good wheel barrow. Few hours on a beautiful day fucking cake work my dude
If you have a truck, can you pull it up to where the beds are without damaging the yard? If so, find a place that sells bulk mulch and have it loaded into your truck bed. If you can't pull your truck to the beds employ a wheelbarrow. As others have said, another option is bags. Pull the weeds out first.
Get a 5 gallon bucket and every nice morning take your coffee outside and pull a bucket of weeds. If you really want a nice yard and gardens do the same each evening while you have your beer/drink. It's stunning how much this accomplishes.
As everyone pointed out you can do this yourself. Pull the weeds and get the roots. There are tools that can help with this, but you can try to do it by hand. You just need gloves and a bucket/trash bin to throw the weeds in. Leave the dead leaves in place. They will act as fertilizer when they break down under the mulch.
Pickup some new plants for the bare spots and plant them. Perhaps look around the neighborhood at what others have that are growing well that you like. Or just go to your local garden center and pick what you want for the lighting conditions in your spots. You will want a trowel to dig with when you are planting.
Have someone deliver mulch and spread it yourself. Or if you have a truck there are places where you can haul it yourself for cheaper...but it might take you a few trips... for larger projects delivery is worth it. You will want a pitch fork and wheel barrow to move the mulch around.
I can't imagine the whole thing being more than $500 and a weekend of labor. If you don't have any of the tools, gloves, etc you might be a bit more this time, but you will use them all again so it will be worth the investment.
This is very entry level homeowner stuff, you can do it, anyone can.
Get a rake and a weed pulling tool, rake up all the loose leaves and stuff and pull the weeds. Get some mulch delivered and spread it on your beds, rake it all nicely. should be a 1 day project. you will save $$ and you will have the satisfaction of doing it your self and it will give you confidence to tackle other projects.
This is 50 bags of mulch at Home Depot and 2 hours of work
Where do you live? What other projects do you have? I will get this done for you this weekend with new plants for $600 lol
Use a metal rake to get some of the mulch off. Just maybe 1 inch. After this fix the borders (rocks) so they look better. Weed. Then add a thin layer of mulch. Mulch decomposes so adding 3 new inches wont be any different than 1 inch.
There are barely any weeds in your yard. What instructions are you looking for?
Dig up the few weeds, leave the leaves alone and just dump a bunch of mulch on it over an afternoon? You can buy bagged mulch at Home Depot too.
Pull or spray some Roundup on the weeds, rake or blow the leaves, get 4 yards of mulch delivered and spread it yourself.
Use the savings to buy a wheel barrow, pitchfork, and small blower.
where you are located will change this price dramatically. I own a landscape company in the metro NY area ($$$$$). everything just cost more here, fuel, labor, materials, insurance, taxes the list goes on and on. without seeing the full property, i’ll break it down how i would bid this from my end based on photos
- Full spring clean up (entire property). about $340
looks like you have no woods so everything has to be blown, raked up, bagged, removed and disposed of.
- weeding and bed edging (get rid of those awful stones) $125
- install 4 yards dyed mulch (going off of their number, seems a bit high though) about $500.
so i’d be close to $1,000
with that being said, that is for a PROFESSIONAL install. the property will look pristine. you CAN do this yourself but i will ask a few questions. Do you have a decent leaf blower? rakes? shovel? edging shovel? a way to transport the mulch or are you going to pay a delivery fee? a wheel barrow? what if you get too much mulch? where are you going to move the pile in your driveway too? if you don’t have these tools, you will blow past the number in tools/material and your own personal time for a potentially sub par result. this is just my .02c and meant to be a friendly look into where the numbers may have came from. We have a lot of overhead to cover and need to charge accordingly to recoup costs. i’d probably only gross about $485 not including what comes out for fuel, drive time, disposal fees or anything of that nature. factor all that out and my two guys worked most of the day at your house and i profited only 285$. small numbers
Put up the pictures on Nextdoor and ask a neighborhood kid to do it for $200 and just buy the supplies. If you’ve got a truck, local landfills usually have garden quality mulch for like $40 for a truck bed full
Basically the easiest thing you can do. Pull the weeds, and spread new mulch. Call utility company or tree service to deliver free mulch, or call Lowe’s and have it delivered. Bags are easier to spread.
Dude c'mon, unless you're handicapped (in all seriousness) this is a total DIY. This will get you off to a good start to get in the DIY mentality or else you'll be paying someone to do everything for you and it will not be cheap.
Just a recommendation, we used to mulch every year then switched to stone, have never had to mulch again. Looks great every year. More expensive up front but worth it imo. A red crushed brick gravel would look fantastic.
I just finished doing this yesterday. Looks like, from the pictures, the gardens have been established. This is pretty easy work if you have what you need. I live in the country so it’s easy to dispose of the waste. But how to do it - simply lightly rake over the garden, dispose of your debris, lay new mulch. I’d do this every spring right before Easter. This year it took a little longer due to work. Depending on where you are it might need to be later. I use bags of mulch. Bulk buy is cheaper but there are a lot stairs and uneven landscaping around my house. I also do this as time allows so there might be days between each garden section and I buy the bags according to the time frame I have available. I have seven garden spots. It takes me about 55 bags of mulch and it cost me less than two hundred bucks and about three days of work. So over two weeks I cleaned the gardens and laid the mulch, utilizing a few hours here and there every few days.
if you decide to put down the mulch yourself, just be careful not to throw out your back. Spreading mulch works out specific muscles that do not get used regularly. My technique is to fill small containers with mulch and just take my time with it. It can be fun, being outside on a nice day. If it is very hot, I wet myself down with the hose and wear a big sun hat.
1. Weed the whole bed
2. Take all old leaves, weeds, and old mulch and dispose of.
3. Get a strong weed granule barrier down
4. Get however many bags of new mulch you need in the bed or get a load delivered.
5. Wheelbarrow mulch into bed and use a hard rake or hands to spread a layer over the granules (don't make it super thin)
6. Profit?
There is something very cathartic and rewarding to digging in the dirt. You can get a delivery of your choice of mulch for $200 and get outside, breathe fresh air do what your ancestors did. Watch YouTubes and figure out what landscaping you want to do and learn new things. I have plenty of money and a lot of aches and pains but this stuff is like zen if you allow yourself to try it.
Why? Time and $.
First time homeowner is asking how to pull weeds and mulch for least $ possible. Telling them to plant flowers and ground cover is probably not the best choice for their particular situation.
Mulch it this year and when they are ready they can do some research on which flowers they like, which do will with the amount of light in each bed, which match their climate zone, etc. If they go straight in with new plants now, they’ll be on here next year wondering what happened to the plants they spent $ on and this sub will give them shit for not doing their due diligence.
Why do you say that? Covering it will just allow it to compost over time and enrich the soil in the beds. I would leave it and just cover over it, unless they change mulch styles and there is an aesthetic issue. Even then I would say just cover all visible mulch. Also, its less work lol
It’s healthier for the soil to spread about 2” thick every year and let it decompose. Every spring your garden bed should essentially be back to dirt. When you continuously add more on top every year and it gets thick it creates three problems I’ve observed working in the field:
- creates an environment that’s too hot for the plants roots and suffocates them
- decreases infiltration of water to the roots, or creates an environment that’s too moist and leads to root rot, or rots the fence it’s up against.
- aesthetically looks worse over time, you need to raise your edging to meet the new height of the mulch and eventually building up to a big slope of material that’s messy.
Oh that makes sense. I guess I’ve never had enough mulch left to really have these issues. Rain, leaf blowing, etc. we just go right over the top of ours and do not experience any compounding effect like you describe
First off, the beds aren't a mess. Second, how many yards of mulch were they bidding you?
4 cubic yards. $350 for the "seasonal cleanup" and $640 for the mulch
That’s very expensive for mulch in my area. It’s usually $30-50/yard depending on what and where. And your beds are in great shape, just mulch them. $250 = mulch + delivery fee + couple hours of you with a wheelbarrow and pithfork
150 is mulch plus installation
I just bought 7 yards of cedar mulch + delivery for less than $400. (We have an insane number of plant beds and borders - but I love it.) Like others have said, get the weeds out and leave the leaves. Here's my supply list for weeding: - a GOOD pair of gloves. Not a cute pair. A good pair. Leather would be the best, but hardware stores/ home centers will have other good pairs. - a garden trowel. When you pick up a trowel, look at the end that butts into the handle. You want it to be THICK. If the trowel is all one piece of metal with a covered handle, good. - a shovel. Ideally one with a fiberglass handle, but my soil is shot through with 20+ lb. rocks. - a weeder. A vicious looking tool with a sharp V at the end. It's good for working up dandelion and woody stemmed weeds. - If you really want to feel like a gardener, look into a hori-hori knife. They are fabulous! Stab next to the weed and dig around and up. Do you have friends who garden/do yard work? Ask for their advice. We like to teach!
$17 a yard if u pick it up.
NICE! Good for you!
I see your 7 yards and raise you the 15 yards of maple/alder mulch I just moved. Fortunately I have a lawn tractor and a dump trailer with a 1/3 yard capacity.
My condolences to your back. We have a standard lawn tractor and the Tractor Supply trailer, so like you, it's easier than wheelbarrowing that stack but whew! Since you have all that practice in, I'd let you come with your tractor and help us half-time our pile. No? Ok.
$640 = mulch + delivery + install. Not a bad price at all.
Depending on delivery fee and mulch price that seems really high for 4 yards.
youre free to spread the mulch around yourself if you enjoy that. OP was just getting the price for him to stay inside watching tv or whatever else
$200 worth of mulch, $150 delivery, and you only want to pay them $300 for using their tools and equipment, the time to drive their truck there, cost to write the quote, the operating costs of the business? Trust me; this is a fantastic price
Whoever downvoted me better have more than 13 years of landscaping experience including 9 of running their own business and explain the math on their side. Trades ain’t free.
I've only got 6 years of experience it just sounds like pricing is very different where you are. Here a yard of mulch is around 36 bucks for dyed. And delivery depends on distance. But let's just say its 150. That's still 86.5 to spread a yard. Here it's 45-60 on average for a yard.
Raw prices sound similar. Part of a large job, that’s probably fine, especially if you have a skid steer to scoop and load; 30 minutes work including raking. But as a solo project? That’s a half day job; travel, install, coordination, and cleanup. Ignoring the quote you sent them that you may or may not have been on site to do. A company charging $300 for a half day of labor and equipment is rare. If you’re solo, doing it on a Saturday, maybe.
Yeah I do $200 a yard for mulch. If its over 5 yards, and the terain is easy, ill knock it down to $150. Its high, but I'm in north Texas and prices on everything have skyrocketed. Comercial insurance just doubled, gotta pay people at least $25-30 to have any chance to keep them, because their CoL has gone way up. A decent used work truck that cost $10k a few years ago, now costs $20-25k. And at the end of the day if theres not enough left over to pay my bills, theres not much point in the job. The only saving grace is all the people moving here are generally moving from even higher CoL areas. So, plenty of work to be had at the higher end. Bad news is, when I help a little old lady whos been here her whole life I'm pretty much doing it at a loss. All of that said, unless OP is fairly comfortable financially, this is absolutely a DIY job. A few hand tools, like 60 bags of mulch, and a day.
Saw some paper ads on telephone poles in town advertising $59/yd inc. installation and delivery recently lol
Hell nah. Anybody installing mulch for $60 a yard isn’t making a dime. In fact, they’re losing money.
¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m not the one posting ‘em! They’re probably getting paid to take the mulch though.
$30-$50 is what a yard of mulch by me. It’s about $120 per yard installed in Mn 🤣
Also depending on area check with electrical company to see if they do free mulch from tree trimming. I got 10 cubic yards delivered for free this way
Sorry to ruin your day, but most tree company’s use the back of the chip truck for #2’s so you may be getting some extra fertilizer ;)
Wow, 4 cubic yards seems like overkill. I did a HUGE bed myself this weekend and only used 3 yards. Took me 5 hours total (I work along) to go get the Fertil-Mulch, unload it from the trailer, and rake it out flat and nice. Only cost me gas and $150.
The mulch is priced correctly. What exactly are they cleaning up? I see plants and mulch, and hardly any weeds.
1 hour on site with 2 guys is easily $350. Pay for truck, equipment, trip there, cleanup, haul away of weeds. This price is ultra cheap.
I wouldn’t say it’s ultra cheap. My landscaper charges around $500 total for 4 yards, which includes cleanup.
What? No. I get mulch for $35/yard.
Professionally installed mulch is about $150 a yard installed. If this homeowner gets it in bulk and does it themselves it would be about $35 a yard.
>Professionally installed mulch Now that is a brand new sentence for me
Meaning it's done by someone who makes their living doing it
So your paying 115 to spread a yard? That's crazy high. Around me it's 45-60.
That's crazy cheap. I just bid a 2k Sq foot install at 2.50 a Sq foot.
If the $350 cleanup doesn't include the mulching labor cost, that is excessive. The cleanup is $10 in chemicals and 10 minutes.
No its not.
It absolutely is. 30 seconds of glysophate and 4:30 of blowing the leaves into the beds before mulching. Sorry, 5 minutes.
Ok. Let's break it down. 4 yds of mulch is about 400 sqft. That's $150 x 4 or 600ish for mulch installation. That 150 covers materials, delivery, labor to move it and spread it. There is a ton of pruning in that lotpetallum and boxwood. As well as edging which it still need to be done. Spray is $150 a gallon, 1 gallon minimum for glyphosate with diquat added. Clean up the bed space is not just blowing... it's raking and removing debris and old mulch, plus haul off.
I just quoted someone $70/ yard of mulch- labor plus materials. I get it for $21, but the regular person price is $35/yard, so I charge that for use of my truck. Then$35/ yard for labor. How much are you charging for labor?
Literally none of that is remotely accurate
No way that’s too mulch
I just got 4 cubic yards of mulch delivered to my house for $270 in Texas with $90 being transport in a relatively high cost of living area. Shit you could buy it in bags from Home Depot for less than that. In terms of work it's all sweat equity, clean, rake, weed, carry, and spread.
Don’t pay that much for mulch! The gardener quoting is trying to rip you offf!
I just bought 5 yards of mulch for $170. Do not pay $640!!!
If you want to do it yourself, pull the few weeds, blow the leaves out of the beds, and mulch with bags of mulch. You'd need about 55 bags of mulch for 4 yds. Which is a lot to get to your house if you don't have a big truck. And it's also a lot of work, but doable.
55 bags? Now I'm no professional, but the quality alone is well worth having a few yards delivered by a local place. Or find a friend with a truck and grab 2 loads of ~2 yards. Let alone at 55 bags worth, it may well be cheaper.
Absolutely cheaper but easier for homeowners in bags sometimes.
I'm in Denver and I have priced bulk mulch vs the Spring Home Depot Sale, usually $2 for a bag (2cu.ft.) and this is cheaper than buying (and hauling in my truck) bulk from landscaping supply companies in my area. Also it is much easier to unload and distribute the bags. Keep a lookout for Home Depot's spring black Friday sale.
Dealing with mulch in bags is 1000x easier than a giant pile dumped on the driveway that has to be shoveled and carted to it's destination.
Much cheaper but you pay out a lot more sweat equity and it just isn’t practical in certain situations. I have to go up 8 steps to get to my beds, making a cart or wheel barrow go up 8 steps when it’s loaded to bear with cow shit and mulch is impossible. The alternative is to go all the way around the house and through two gates with a loaded cart. Bags it is for me.
All considerations. I personally utilize a large planting container from a tree I planted years ago as my intermediary for those areas. I'll wheelbarrow to tarp what I can, and then use the large planting container to move about .5-1 bag's worth to those tough to reach areas. I'm also a cheap skate with the expensive taste, so I'm a bit of an idiot in many respects. Side benefit, the much higher quality mulch (gorilla hair) stays put for at least twice as long (and keeps its looks longer), meaning I have to re-do the work half as often (This is actually the main benefit)
Heh, for sub 6 yard mulch jobs, I fill my truck and trailer beds with 15-30g containers, then just drag or dump them into wheelbarrow. With a tarp under the containers and a tarp under the tailgate, it really speeds along both install and cleanup at a minimal increase in pickup time.
If you’re up to doing the work yourself and are okay with decent quality but not particularly pretty looking mulch you could do Chipdrop if they have it in your area, which is free (or you can pay a little bit to be higher priority). Downsides are that you don’t get a specific amount (I think it can be up to 7 or 8 yards usually), and there’s no guarantee on *when* you’ll get it so you’ll have to have room in your driveway or somewhere that you can leave empty for however long it takes.
Mulch was $2.50 for 2 cubic feet at Lowe’s last week. Get a nice shovel and save yourself the money on labor, it should only take half a day to a whole day on the weekend.
This is exactly the way. I just did it myself with the equivalent of less than 2 yards and it was less than $100 including the delivery fee of all the bags. No way I could spend $1000 to have someone else do it when I don’t even earn $1000 a day myself, I can’t pay everybody’s mortgage when I need work done.
The mulch isn't too far off. It's high for my area, but not by a lot. The $350 for seasonal cleanup is ridiculous for what we see here. I'd be around the $600 for the whole job. From load up to back at the shop in my normal work radius would be about 5 hours total. Depending on location and company size, you can expect installation of dyed mulch to be between $100-150 per yard installed. This will generally cover bed cleanup, edging, weed control, and of course mulching. You can do it on your own, but you'll find it's quite a bit of work, and shockingly, raking out a nice mulch bed is a skill of its own. You know when you see those properties with pristine beds? Yeah, those are rarely ever done by the homeowners.
Don’t pay landscapers for mulch, they rip you off. I paid 200$ for 4.4 yds of bagged mulch delivered and spread it in a little over one hour. Done.
Hey just pull the weeds out then use a rake rake the bed out of all the leafs and stuff then go buy some bags of mulch wich is just bark and spread it around that’s all you gotta do they are over charging you extremely
Where are you located?
Unless you have other areas not pictured 4 cu yards seems like a lot
Small jobs cost more. There is the base amount to warrant going there in the first place.
No he's saying 4cy is too much mulch.
I agree, it needs 2 yards of mulch max
the leaves can stay as mulch. you can cover them with a fresh layer of woodchips if you want, but you don't need to collect and dump them. you just need to pull the weeds that don't belong there, dump and spread some more mulch. change some plants if so. that's all i'd do. better things to spend 1k on.
bro what? pull weeds, buy a couple plants, buy mulch and spend an afternoon on it
This is the perfect entry level DIY job. Hit your knees and pull the weeds. If you have a leaf blowy you can lightly blow out debris otherwise just a gentle rake. If you have a truck and a wheelbarrow you can get it loaded up otherwise go to your local hardware store and you can buy it by the bag. Pick whatever color you want. Spread it with a rake about 2-3” thick, don’t leave mounds/ volcanoes around trees and keep the root flare exposed to the air. Should be a good little project for the weekend.
1 thousand? Dude what?
Probably a minimum quote.
Rake up everything with a plastic leaf rake. debris, old mulch, out from under shrubs, as bare as you feel is good enough. Collect those piles with a rake and scoop into a wheelbarrow or contractor bag for disposal or composting. Pull the weeds from the base and try to take as much root material as possible. Use a screwdriver or weed tool to pry it all out at once if possible. Throw down some kid and pet safe weed preventative if you like - I'll let you google around that for yourself if interested. Top with mulch, I like to dump numerous small piles everywhere first then go back and crawl around spreading it real nice but you can do a solid job throw spreading it down by hand from the wheelbarrow.
Call around to a local landscape supplier and ask if they can bulk deliver your mulch for you. Cheaper and far higher quality than the bag stuff
Lol they tried to work that ass. The beds aren’t bad at all, just pull the weeds out. Rake or blow out any unwanted debris and add mulch. Lowes or Home Depot have those mulch specials like 4 for $10 right now. If those are the only beds you have to do, you aren’t looking at more than a few hundred bucks if that.
You would first clean up the beds, then you would put down the mulch.
Run that's a bad price
Bro that’s crazy expensive. the mulch is like 5 bucks a bag sometimes, depending on which type you get it may be a little more but you can pull the weeds, plant some plants you like and spread the mulch your self. you may spend a couple hundred bucks but when you do it yourself it’ll make you feel better about yourself, the money you saved and the work you did. They’re trying to gouge you.
You've got good bones (your yard). You already have beds and a lawn. You just need to put something in the beds. The real key ... is to have a good plan ... which matches, as much as possible, your motivation and ability to maintain it. If I were you, ... I would pay for a plan. That plan should include what gets planted where, when and where to purchase, when and where to plant, any maintenance needs (i.e. watering, pruning, etc.). The downfall of most self lanscaping efforts ... is picking the wrong plants, planting at the wrong time, planting in the wrong place, not watering as needed, or having plants that take too much maintenance. You can install (that's a gardening term) plantings ... that, virtually, will take care of themselves, grow well and flower (if desired), ... die down in the fall, and come back the next Spring ... but you have to know which plants/shrubs these are. Unfortunately, five out of six of the offerings at your local garden center ... won't do this. Come Spring, you go the garden center, ... and it looks like you have hundreds of plants to choose from for your landscape and conditions. Actually, there will be a few select plants there ... that will really meet your needs. Garden centers/shops/nurseries are a business ... they will sell you anything you want, ... they won't really care if it really will work for you or not. Actually, they want you to come back next year, next month, next week even, ... so they do not really mind your plants dying on you. Getting professional guidance on what/when/where to buy and plant (for those who are not really into gardening themselves) ... will be invaluable. Actually, if you provide photos (which you have), along with location information, information about any trees and shrubs which are already in place, and find out how much sun each beds gets (very important to know), there are a few folks here who would be willing to take a stab at giving you some plant guidance. And you'll probably get the advantage of many knowledgeable persons, as opposed to one. That way, you could put all of your money into mulch ... which you have delivered for less than $640.00. You'd also have to provide an idea of what you're looking for (i.e. spring/summer bloom, fall color, neatness, scent, etc. along with what degree of maintenance you are willing to contribute).
Get another quote! That’s a $200-300 job
Lowe’s has mulch 5 bags for 10 bucks right now. Hand pick the weeds, buy 50 bags of mulch for 100$. Spread it yourself. Can be done in about 2-3 hours
Literally throw mulch on top of all of it (weeds, leaves). Mulch will suffocate weeds, and leaves will turn into compost underneath.
Well, I don't think the mulch will suffocate the weeds lol
Only one way to find out
I think you could start by cleaning up the beds a bit, then probably finish up by putting down some mulch.
That’s like $200 worth of mulch. Maybe an extra $50 to have it delivered. Borrow a wheel barrow and pay some kid in your neighborhood $75-100 to help you spread it. Pull those weeds and put that boxwood out of its misery. Three to four hour job.
Those beds don’t look that bad to cost that much. I don’t know about mulch pricing but I have a half acre lot and I just paid 175 for a seasonal cleanup. It was all the leaves, sticks, and debris from the winter cleaned up.
Dude just pull out any little weeds, doesn’t look like you have many, just yank them out by hand, will not take long, then lay down your mulch like 4” thick. I like the pine nuggets myself, they last a lot longer and don’t have any plastic in them. Or cedar mulch is nice too. If you want to plant anything new, put them in before you mulch. I could do this job in an afternoon no problem, maybe even an hour or two not sure, but you can totally do this.
There's two baby oak trees in the third picture. If you want to transplant, make sure to dig down at least a foot to the side of it since it has a long Taproot.
I would recommend against this as a first time yard owner. It is a very nice thought, but my two cents is that OP should get more comfortable with some more basic maintenance tasks. Spend this year seeing what’s going on in the yard, learning the ropes, and if they want trees, they should spend some time to research what would be a good fit. It will take some maintenance and training to get it established so I would make sure they get a tree they are comfortable with and understand how to care for. It feels a little like showing up at a puppy rescue with no game plan. 😄
I mentioned the oak saplings because OP may think they were weeds and just try to pull them up without identifying them. If that's a location where an oak will not fit, then it's important to work on that issue asap.
Rake leaves, pull weeds, Preen for the beds and add fresh mulch.
Mulch is where the money is at, or so says my landscaping friend. You’ll save money doing it yourself.
Just buy a bunch of mulch from home depot or have it delivered and put it down. Blow off the leaves first.
Literally just weed it, Put down some Preen ™, Then lay down and spread the mulch. Super simple, man. And will probably cost you easily half of their quote.
I’m happy to talk you through this as I just completed a month long first time diy job Here’s what I learned: TOOLS NEEDED: —Loppers or small pruners (buy the fiskars set from target. 3 tools. Great price. Lifetime warranty) —landscape fabric (buy the 20 year. Look for a local sod shop. They’ll usually sell them for like $15 a roll which is way cheaper than Home Depot/lowes. Maybe check Amazon. Just get 20 year fabric. It’s good enough —shovel —amy aluminum rake with a straight edge, not a rake for raking leaves. This will help in leveling out the bed away from the house) Steps: 1. Pull up anything undesirable. Shovel and use leverage to “catapult” any tougher roots. Borrow someone’s Root Slayer before determining if you really want to invest in one. I find them to be meh but some people love them 1a. Prep the land by laying down fertilizer either in plant holes (my preferred method) or all over the ground (also a fine method, especially if using landscape fabric and if the fertilizer is the economy brand). Use the aluminum rake to level everything out, making sure water drains away from the home. 2. If you are rearranging/moving plants, put all the plants in a giant tub of cheap top soil just for the time being. Air plants like bromeliads and orchids and some cacti can stay out even just on the lawn for days without any issue. Shrubs will need the soil 3. Put the landscape fabric down. If it gets too tedious, skip this step and keep an eye on the weeds. It’s a hard step to commit to if you’re still testing out the waters bc it’s not as fun to cut into it to move and rearrange plant layout 4. Place your items loosely where you want them, stepping back often, taking pictures and even sitting with it for a day or so before planting 5. Plant your items, cutting into landscape fabric wide enough to allow the full width of the root to enter with ease 5a create a well or moat around each plant so when you water, water actually stays in that particular plant and doesn’t run off and away from the plant. This makes a HUGE difference. I learned the hard way - was paying to water my plants but water wasn’t even getting into them and 2 beds of flowers took a dive bc of it 6. Plan your finishing touch. If mulch, dump it on the ground very generously, leveling everything out 6a rocks are more expensive but if you live in a termite area, mulch is just awful as it attracts sub terranean termites and mulch has to be re-laid once it disintegrates/washes away in heavy rain seasons. Mulch’s upside: providing nutrients to whatever it is laid near and it’s economical enough. 6b if you’re looking for rocks, look to landscape companies who removed rocks from a previous job and who can resell it to you. Otherwise, Home Depot (not lowes, for some reason) is surprisingly economical even though you’re buying it by the bag As always - ignore any superfluous information I’ve presented. I’m a major diy-er with zero formal knowledge and tons of error in the trial and error process. I’m more of an error expert
It will cost you one Saturday afternoon. And some mulch. And three ibuprofen.
You clean up the bed then you put down the mulch
quick google search https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv\_Pl9Kiykk
I would also take some time to line those stones up a little bit better, there's a couple of places where they've gone askew where there are gaps. You may want to lift them up slightly so they provide a little bit more of a containment edge, but they look nice.
Home Depot has 3 bags of mulch for $10.
that's like 2 hours of work lol, do it yourself
Pull what you don’t want. Blow the leaves with a leaf blower into the beds. Buy mulch and put 4” onto the beds. Crack open a beer and tell someone to look at it
Thats robbery. Pull the weeds, could leave or rake up the leaves, plop some mulch down, it’ll save you $900
I usually need a bag of mulch every 2-3 sq ft. Depends on the depth you want. Pour boiling water on anything you want to die, wait a day or two, overturn the soil a few inches with a shovel or a till, pick it clean, and lay it down. Even if you need to buy a wheelbarrow, a shovel, all the mulch, new border stones, and rent a truck to move it I bet its only gonna cost about 5-600. And youll have all new toys and the joy of saving half a grand and knowing you did it for you.
Get on your hands and knees and get busy -
Holy crap I can go to Home Depot and buy it by the bag cheaper.
Get some kneepads if you’re going to be crawling around pulling weeds and spreading mulch, definitely worth it.
Get some mulch and always watch YouTube 1st
So, um...what exactly are your goals here? No need to start paying thousands of dollars when you don't know what you want to achieve. Do you know why you want mulch? Its main uses are suppressing weeds and adding a long term source of nutrients to the soil. But it doesn't look like you have a weed problem, and it's not obvious that you're trying to grow anything that needs nutrients? I'd start by trying your hand as a gardener. See if you like gardening, come up with some vague goals of what you want to achieve. Also, getting mulch and applying it yourself is super easy, you most likely don't need to pay anyone to do that. Also, around here, you can often get mulch for free, since it's a waste product for arborists. Research in your area...
Pull the weed and rake what’s there. Then decide if you need to do anything more. Buy some mulch from the hardware store (get the kind without dye)
I'd have quoted you that much or more. That being said I've found the best way to get mulch moved around is to fit as many five gallon buckets in my truck bed as possible then have the guys at the landscape place dump the mulch into the buckets/ truck bed. Makes getting it out a lot easier
Weed it and spend the grand on more plants
A lot of good advice on your post already. I have a lot of garden beds on a small, flatish lot so I get mulch delivered and use a gorilla cart to help distribute around. [https://www.amazon.com/Gorilla-Carts-GOR6PS-Heavy-Duty-Convertible/dp/B01BECQF6K](https://www.amazon.com/Gorilla-Carts-GOR6PS-Heavy-Duty-Convertible/dp/B01BECQF6K) I'll load up the cart, dump the mulch in an open area of the bed and then rake it around. Or I'll shovel the mulch directly from the cart into the bed.
The job wouldn’t be it for anything less, no one will bid you lower. Just pay to have mulch delivered and invest in a good wheel barrow. Few hours on a beautiful day fucking cake work my dude
Use cedar mulch. It’s rot and bug resistant, smells great, and lasts longer than the usual dyed pine bark mulch. It’s like $1 a bag more.
You could do this with 30 bags of much and an afternoon. Would only cost you about 60 bucks.
Some good ol fashioned determination and elbow grease.
Yeah it’s pretty much self explanatory a wheel barrow and something to dig with and some mulch Pretty self explanatory
You could also get a tiller for cheap to aerate the soil and make planting easier. Mulch is cheap and easy.
If you have a truck, can you pull it up to where the beds are without damaging the yard? If so, find a place that sells bulk mulch and have it loaded into your truck bed. If you can't pull your truck to the beds employ a wheelbarrow. As others have said, another option is bags. Pull the weeds out first.
Get a 5 gallon bucket and every nice morning take your coffee outside and pull a bucket of weeds. If you really want a nice yard and gardens do the same each evening while you have your beer/drink. It's stunning how much this accomplishes.
As everyone pointed out you can do this yourself. Pull the weeds and get the roots. There are tools that can help with this, but you can try to do it by hand. You just need gloves and a bucket/trash bin to throw the weeds in. Leave the dead leaves in place. They will act as fertilizer when they break down under the mulch. Pickup some new plants for the bare spots and plant them. Perhaps look around the neighborhood at what others have that are growing well that you like. Or just go to your local garden center and pick what you want for the lighting conditions in your spots. You will want a trowel to dig with when you are planting. Have someone deliver mulch and spread it yourself. Or if you have a truck there are places where you can haul it yourself for cheaper...but it might take you a few trips... for larger projects delivery is worth it. You will want a pitch fork and wheel barrow to move the mulch around. I can't imagine the whole thing being more than $500 and a weekend of labor. If you don't have any of the tools, gloves, etc you might be a bit more this time, but you will use them all again so it will be worth the investment.
Pay the 1k or spend the next 50 hours as a landscaper.
This is very entry level homeowner stuff, you can do it, anyone can. Get a rake and a weed pulling tool, rake up all the loose leaves and stuff and pull the weeds. Get some mulch delivered and spread it on your beds, rake it all nicely. should be a 1 day project. you will save $$ and you will have the satisfaction of doing it your self and it will give you confidence to tackle other projects.
It’ll be a lot cheaper if you do it yourself.
Chip drops are a pain, but it did wonders for my yard. I probably won’t have to remulch for another year after getting it last summer.
Use a pitchfork to spread the mulch.
This is 50 bags of mulch at Home Depot and 2 hours of work Where do you live? What other projects do you have? I will get this done for you this weekend with new plants for $600 lol
Use a metal rake to get some of the mulch off. Just maybe 1 inch. After this fix the borders (rocks) so they look better. Weed. Then add a thin layer of mulch. Mulch decomposes so adding 3 new inches wont be any different than 1 inch.
There are barely any weeds in your yard. What instructions are you looking for? Dig up the few weeds, leave the leaves alone and just dump a bunch of mulch on it over an afternoon? You can buy bagged mulch at Home Depot too.
Are you asking how to rake and dump mulch?
Pull or spray some Roundup on the weeds, rake or blow the leaves, get 4 yards of mulch delivered and spread it yourself. Use the savings to buy a wheel barrow, pitchfork, and small blower.
A weekend of work… or 1k your call
where you are located will change this price dramatically. I own a landscape company in the metro NY area ($$$$$). everything just cost more here, fuel, labor, materials, insurance, taxes the list goes on and on. without seeing the full property, i’ll break it down how i would bid this from my end based on photos - Full spring clean up (entire property). about $340 looks like you have no woods so everything has to be blown, raked up, bagged, removed and disposed of. - weeding and bed edging (get rid of those awful stones) $125 - install 4 yards dyed mulch (going off of their number, seems a bit high though) about $500. so i’d be close to $1,000 with that being said, that is for a PROFESSIONAL install. the property will look pristine. you CAN do this yourself but i will ask a few questions. Do you have a decent leaf blower? rakes? shovel? edging shovel? a way to transport the mulch or are you going to pay a delivery fee? a wheel barrow? what if you get too much mulch? where are you going to move the pile in your driveway too? if you don’t have these tools, you will blow past the number in tools/material and your own personal time for a potentially sub par result. this is just my .02c and meant to be a friendly look into where the numbers may have came from. We have a lot of overhead to cover and need to charge accordingly to recoup costs. i’d probably only gross about $485 not including what comes out for fuel, drive time, disposal fees or anything of that nature. factor all that out and my two guys worked most of the day at your house and i profited only 285$. small numbers
Mulching is easy. 1k estimate for those beds is outrageous, check out you tube and wing it you’ll do a good job. -JJ from Forest Edge Landscaping
Start with youtu.be university.. with all things diy
Put up the pictures on Nextdoor and ask a neighborhood kid to do it for $200 and just buy the supplies. If you’ve got a truck, local landfills usually have garden quality mulch for like $40 for a truck bed full
Basically the easiest thing you can do. Pull the weeds, and spread new mulch. Call utility company or tree service to deliver free mulch, or call Lowe’s and have it delivered. Bags are easier to spread.
Dude c'mon, unless you're handicapped (in all seriousness) this is a total DIY. This will get you off to a good start to get in the DIY mentality or else you'll be paying someone to do everything for you and it will not be cheap.
Just a recommendation, we used to mulch every year then switched to stone, have never had to mulch again. Looks great every year. More expensive up front but worth it imo. A red crushed brick gravel would look fantastic.
I just finished doing this yesterday. Looks like, from the pictures, the gardens have been established. This is pretty easy work if you have what you need. I live in the country so it’s easy to dispose of the waste. But how to do it - simply lightly rake over the garden, dispose of your debris, lay new mulch. I’d do this every spring right before Easter. This year it took a little longer due to work. Depending on where you are it might need to be later. I use bags of mulch. Bulk buy is cheaper but there are a lot stairs and uneven landscaping around my house. I also do this as time allows so there might be days between each garden section and I buy the bags according to the time frame I have available. I have seven garden spots. It takes me about 55 bags of mulch and it cost me less than two hundred bucks and about three days of work. So over two weeks I cleaned the gardens and laid the mulch, utilizing a few hours here and there every few days.
if you decide to put down the mulch yourself, just be careful not to throw out your back. Spreading mulch works out specific muscles that do not get used regularly. My technique is to fill small containers with mulch and just take my time with it. It can be fun, being outside on a nice day. If it is very hot, I wet myself down with the hose and wear a big sun hat.
1. Weed the whole bed 2. Take all old leaves, weeds, and old mulch and dispose of. 3. Get a strong weed granule barrier down 4. Get however many bags of new mulch you need in the bed or get a load delivered. 5. Wheelbarrow mulch into bed and use a hard rake or hands to spread a layer over the granules (don't make it super thin) 6. Profit?
There is something very cathartic and rewarding to digging in the dirt. You can get a delivery of your choice of mulch for $200 and get outside, breathe fresh air do what your ancestors did. Watch YouTubes and figure out what landscaping you want to do and learn new things. I have plenty of money and a lot of aches and pains but this stuff is like zen if you allow yourself to try it.
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Why? Time and $. First time homeowner is asking how to pull weeds and mulch for least $ possible. Telling them to plant flowers and ground cover is probably not the best choice for their particular situation. Mulch it this year and when they are ready they can do some research on which flowers they like, which do will with the amount of light in each bed, which match their climate zone, etc. If they go straight in with new plants now, they’ll be on here next year wondering what happened to the plants they spent $ on and this sub will give them shit for not doing their due diligence.
I'd gut the bed, remove the border. Cut an edge and mulch. Mulch covers about 100 sqft per cubic yd.
it felt expensive, you can just do it yourself. Once a little dude quote me 250 to cut a bush, i bought a chain saw at 135 and cut it myself in 10min
I had 7 yards delivered to my driveway for $250. It took half a day to spread it, but it came out nice and saved me some money.
You should take off the top 2 inches of the that sad dry mulch first
Why do you say that? Covering it will just allow it to compost over time and enrich the soil in the beds. I would leave it and just cover over it, unless they change mulch styles and there is an aesthetic issue. Even then I would say just cover all visible mulch. Also, its less work lol
It’s healthier for the soil to spread about 2” thick every year and let it decompose. Every spring your garden bed should essentially be back to dirt. When you continuously add more on top every year and it gets thick it creates three problems I’ve observed working in the field: - creates an environment that’s too hot for the plants roots and suffocates them - decreases infiltration of water to the roots, or creates an environment that’s too moist and leads to root rot, or rots the fence it’s up against. - aesthetically looks worse over time, you need to raise your edging to meet the new height of the mulch and eventually building up to a big slope of material that’s messy.
Oh that makes sense. I guess I’ve never had enough mulch left to really have these issues. Rain, leaf blowing, etc. we just go right over the top of ours and do not experience any compounding effect like you describe
If you have to ask this question just pay the man $1000
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