Mulch Mania 2010 - Part Deux

As usual, getting around to making much progress is taking longer than hoped (the story of my life!). I have, however, mulched the front bean w/ pine straw and as a means of counting bales for future reference - I kept all the orange strings that go around each bale and counted them up at the end so I know for future reference how many bales are needed to cover each area. (I'm pretty smart - aren't I?)

So, here goes:
verdant kidney bean = 30 bales

Not sure how that works using the common mulch math of 1 bale should cover X sq ft at 3 inches or whatever, but I think it's pretty dead on since I counted 60 orange strins and there are two strings per bail.

New city ordinances now require that commercial buildings (apts - not sure about offices) NOT have any pinestraw w/in 10 feet of them because of a residential fire somewhere. So, maybe next year I'll order the bags for everything - even though they're more expensive than having the truck come out, the loose mulch is a lot harder to work with. So, we'll see about next year. Here's hoping I have no fire until then.

I plan to count strings/bags for all the rest of the mulching that I have to do, so I'll update w/ a summary when I finish.

Also was thinking today that I should build up some kind of edge along my driveway shade bed to prevent erosion - maybe using loosely stacked rocks like my mom has but with a gravel pit underneath as foundation for drainage. That idea, of course, is decades down on my to-do list, but it seems like a good idea to me.

Also, planning on purging my shade bed of things that aren't doing that well and perhaps relocating elsewhere and just sticking w/ things that working. I've lost a LOT of stuff to voles - there are dern vole holes all over the place sadly. I might spring for some permatill to get rid of them - wish I had used that stuff to begin with when I created the bed - not sure how much it costs, but given all the plants I've lost, it kind of sucks. I guess one could think of permatill as insurance - although frankly, I now know that I have voles so my likelihood of needing the permatill is 100% unlike w/ insurance. So, it might be a good investment. I could amend as I add new stuff I guess. I'd like to get rid of things like hostas that for the most part don't seem to be doing that well there - maybe mostly because of voles - and use more stuff that seems to be surviving or thriving for some reason - like the taxus, the rhodeas - which desperately need to be divided - and ferns - which are doing okay so far and absorb leaves well. I'd also like more aspidistra - those would have lived if not for the voles I think. My objective will be to keep those things that don't absorb leaves well to a minimum - maybe just a few of the heucheras which still seem to be living! Okay, more later!