The babies got a play structure this summer! So I got to use algebra, so that was a good application of my year in math. So that was good. I measured the lot with the play structure, divided by the number the landscaping company gave me, and figured I needed 1 1/2 cubic yards of mulch.

Then I got a bee in my bonnet about my flower beds. When we bought the house, there was a large rectangular space in front of the house full of rocks. I thought it was a flower bed, and being the gardening genius that I was, I stuck a few plants in the rocks. None of them did very well. So in the fall, I took out all the rocks and found this plastic covering the dirt. No wonder nothing grew! So I ripped up the plastic and planted daffodil and tulip bulbs, one daylily (completely by mistake), spirea bushes, a burning bush and evergreen bushes. This was so much fun that I created another flowerbed on the other side of the front door. I put in a little decorative red mulch that first year, and half-heartedly put in a little red mulch the next year, and have been mulch free ever since. Now the bushes are big and beautiful, but the beds are also very weedy.

The plastic and the rocks would have prevented that. Who knew?

Apparently, the neighbors, whom I did not consult when I decided to plant flowers.

So anyway, the neighbor I consulted about mulch told me he gets 7 cubic yards of mulch to do his play yard and all his flower beds. I asked if that would deter weeds, because we were talking about digging up everything and starting over with plastic. He told me the mulch pretty much deters weeds, and indeed, his flower beds are pretty and neat.

I measured the beds, and altogether, they measured to within inches of the play yard, doubling my mulch needs, I figured. I probably needed about 3 cubic yards, but the company doesn’t deliver under 5.

So the man dumped 5 yards of mulch partly on the half of driveway we don’t use and partly in the grass I’ve worked so hard to grow beside the driveway (!) On a tarp, but we still have a large straw-like portion of grass over there now. eek!

I’ve been working like a madwoman to move mulch. We have filled the play yard over and over again, and my beds are happy with high levels of mulch.

Yesterday I made a new flower bed beside the garage. It’ll take some of the mulch. It better take even more. There’s always the other side of the house. . .