First Real Mulch Cap In Conifer Garden - April 2024

Last Fall, I extended (what I call) the IB2DWs (In Between Two Driveways) bed to reach down along the property line, all the way to connect to the small sidewalk-adjacent bed.  In it, I planted a number of conifers (Conifers Should Come First), transplanted a few divisions (Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass and Serendipity Allium) and tucked in a few other things.  When I made that bed, I was converting it from turf and that meant that I used a combination of techniques:  removing the turf, smothering the turf with cardboard and just leaving some of it in place.  I planted everything in biosolids and then topped the bed with even more biosolids.   But...I mostly focused on the planting.  And left the bed in a not-so-finished state.  That meant that grass was poking through in spots, the edges weren't clean and I applied arborist wood chips.  The chips were intended as an initial attempt to both retain moisture and (hopefully) improve the soil.  This area is hard-to-grow and lives on top (partially) of a drywell.

This Spring, I started to clean things up.  Here's a post about how I used the cardboard-to-smother-grass technique in the conifer garden.  After fitting the cardboard to shape, I lay down topsoil (bagged), native soil (from the pizza oven excavation), biosolids and some leaf litter.    

But, this new (as of last Fall) bed still needs work.  That list includes carving up a proper edge on both sides, deciding how much lawn to keep.  Planting in it for the season.  And, finally...laying down mulch.  See...this bed never got a proper mulch cap last year.  Those arborist chips were a mulch of sorts, but not a finished mulch.  

Not to mention that this bed is down close to the sidewalk AND right on our property line.  Having it be a little mess (and unfinished) was just fine during the Winter.  But now?  When everything is waking up?  It was time to straighten it out.  

My plan is to get a full load of proper mulch - but that won't happen until May.  With the orange big box store having their Spring Black Friday sale, I popped over there to buy some bagged hardwood mulch.  Now...this stuff isn't perfect; it is not very fine.  And it is dyed, so it will quickly lose much of its dark brown color.  But, knowing that I'll be getting a proper hardwood fine/leaf mulch cap put on later this Spring, I decided to put down a few bags.  I started with nine.  See below for the current state of the conifer garden - IB2DWs extended:

I need more mulch, but this (at least) makes the area (and the border along the property line) a bit more presentable.  I also need to sort out how much more turf to take out, but that can wait until May - when the mulch arrives from the pros.

For now, this is part of an item on my forthcoming 2024 to-do list:  #16: Keep improving IB2DWs.