A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Landscape trials and triumphs A Question About Mulch

Good Morning!

My first project has involved changing out an area in front of my house. We had a pretty harsh winter by Florida standards and the 10 year old Hibiscus did not make it. I have pulled out the remains and what I have is a square of mulch.

I have a very healthy pony tail palm that will look great as a centerpiece in this area around which I will install some nice borders. The problem is that I am stuck at start because I can not determine if I should get rid of the old mulch and start over or work around what is there. I did some searching around old posts here and found some good advice around when to replace or add to mulch, but nothing seemed to address if you are starting over with an area.

Your suggestions would really be appreciated. This may be covered in a Landscaping 101 class I am taking in 2 weeks, but I am very excited to dig in and get my hands in the dirt!!

Kristine

Honestly I think it depends on how much new mulch you want to buy

I've done over 'old into new' areas and used all new mulch and done over others using the old mulch as a base and the new mulch on top. Just remove all the mulch that you can first and set it aside, then do your new plantings and decide if you'd like to start fresh or recycle a bit.

I also check my old mulch, if it's infested with bugs, eggs or such then that also helps me make the 'toss' decision.

I also must say hi and welcome It's wonderful that you are getting to take a landscaping class.

I agree Tamara.

The idea is to keep about 3 inches of mulch over shrub beds and around trees. Two inches is plenty in flower beds. If you've already got that much, you can skip adding new mulch if your mulch is pest free. If you're down an inch, just top the old stuff with an inch of new stuff to get back up to the optimum level.

If you do anything to the old mulch, it'd help to cultivate it a bit to break up any matting that's occurred. Shredded hardwood, in particular, is prone to knitting together and matting. A matted surface can impede rain from soaking in. Even in this event, the idea is to disturb the matting - not to get rid of all the mulch.