As it starts to get cool and crisp here, I am reminiscing about this time last year...
I did this part in (what I think was a) the wrong order. In my rush to get the plants in the ground before it got too cold, I did not get my mulch spread out or my pathways dug first. So the first thing I did is stick roughly 40 baby plants in the ground. They were already mostly dormant and real smol!
What is that pile of sticks, you may be asking? I got my mulch from ChipDrop for $20. This works by sticking my name and address into a system (and a pre-payment, which is not required but I did it. I knew I was more likely to get the chips in a timely manner if I shelled out some dollars). Then, when a tree/trees nearby were removed, they brought me the truck and dumped it in my yard. As you can imagine, this wasn't the prettiest mulch. It had large unusable chunks, limbs, and some trash mixed in, so as I was laying I was sorting, too. I also got way too much mulch this way, but I was able to give it away to neighbors and friends pretty easily.
Between laying the mulch and digging the path, I had a lot of work to do. Don't do it that way unless you must, friends. The plants were so diminutive and I was trying to put weed barrier and mulch AROUND them without squishing them with my butt, feet, knees, or wheelbarrow... It would have been easier to lay mulch and weed barrier then cut through them and place the plants in the ground, but while I have become a gardening plant goddess of plants... I am abysmal at keeping plants in pots. It gets so cold in the winter time and I knew that the ground would protect their little roots and that fall planting gives plants time to establish over winter, giving me a stronger start the following spring.
A few seemingly random things...
It isn't great to mulch up to houses, so I used rocks that we pulled out of the original flower bed edges to create a 6" rock mulch over paper bags here. I had to buy zero rocks and they match my house because they're identical, so I was particularly thrilled with this ingenuity. I'm so smert and resourceful
Lots of weeds and grasses will grow in the winter, so throughout all of this I had to keep tarps down wherever I could. I did end up re-removing some growth in the last places I dug my path, which was very frustrating (I ALREADY DID THIS PART), but because I had already loosened the soil they came out pretty easily.
I chose to dig each of my planned paths 4-6" down and backfill it with mulch to reduce my chances of pulling grass out of them all summer. I am glad I did this - I've had very few issues with weeds growing IN my paths. But boy I hated diggin' them. The dirt was so hard and cold, I had to take tee tiny bites and know that I truly had until the spring to get it done. I did not finish this until we were well into 2024.
Throughout this whole process, I had piles of stuff everywhere... Displaced soil, mulch, decomposing dead grass, paper bags blowing in the wind, sticks I pulled out of my cheap mulch, rocks... But it all had a purpose. It was stressful and to be honest, the fact that it was in front of my house embarrassed me a little bit. Everybody who drove by or came to visit could see my mess. But I had my plan! Finding little treasures in my yard like this little toad butt really helped me remember why I was doing the thing.
We're almost done with this part. If you're getting tired of me writing about it, imagine how tired I was of doing it!
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