Back when I was a professional gardener, I had clients who insisted on having me lay down landscape fabric then putting bark on top of it to discourage weeds. I hated this practice and tried to talk ...

A few years ago, a gardening friend suggested I place a layer of compost in my flower beds before mulching with my usual shredded bark mulch. As my garden seemed happy and required less care that ...

Many folks are now improving new and established gardens with mulch, but be wary of where you get it. It is possible to spread insects like the coconut rhinoceros beetle, sugarcane borer and fire ants ...

While compost and mulch may seem interchangeable, they have distinctly different uses in sustainable landscaping. Photo courtesy San Diego County Water Authority Seventh in a series republished with ...

A rose by any other name may still be a rose, but mulches need defining. There are 17 different materials considered on the University of California’s Statewide Integrated Pest Management website, and ...

SOCIAL DISTANCE: When planting multiple dahlia tubers, it's best to keep them about 12-18 inches apart, as dahlias get quite large. Photo courtesy of HummingBlooms Flower Farm Hi there neighbors, ...

Mulch provides a variety of benefits for gardens, including weed control, temperature regulation, and moisture retention. Organic mulches, like compost and wood chips, decompose over time, enriching ...

Gardeners have a special mantra: Compost, compost, compost. Mulch, mulch, mulch. It seems that almost anything that’s wrong in our flower beds can be solved, or at least improved, by the addition of ...

Compost is a great way to recycle kitchen and garden scraps. It takes organic waste and turns it into nutrient-rich humus that can be used by plants. Composting is a way of returning to the soil what ...