[kds]

What is your opinion on municipal mulch -- sometimes affectionately referred to as "welfare mulch" -- trees that were taken down by the city or its contractors, chipped, and then made available to the public?

If you've read my lawn journal recently, you'll know that my lawn and landscape budget got cut to essentially $0 for this season, so I'm working on ways to do things on the cheap. I still need to mulch a very large section of my backyard, which is about 9 cubic yards (about $500-600 worth of cedar mulch if it doesn't go on sale as part of my local nursery's 20% off "mulch madness" sale).

I went and checked out the mulch pile in a nearby city and it seemed a little better than I expected. I was expecting it to be a little more "leafy" but I guess since we're just coming out of dormancy it makes sense there were hardly any leaves. There were some larger chunks and some sticks but for the most part it had the same consistency as nursery mulch.

Here's a pic of the pile from today:

What are your opinions on using this stuff? Only if it's not too leafy? Any worries about disease or other hazards?

 

[GrassDaddy]

I'd use it. AFAIK the compost is what you need to be concerned about. If it's not processed all the way it could have weed seeds in it. But mulch? I'm not sure that matters as much. I wish we had some free mulch over here, my budget just went to $0 as well

 

[Mightyquinn]

At your budget I would say go for it as it does look pretty clean. Who knows, if it works out, you know have a good cheap source for mulch in the future.

 

[high leverage]

The potential for contaminated mulch is very high. I had a friend that went this route. The following year he had a Nutsedge problem.

 

[Movingshrub]

What type of area would receive the mulch? Flower or ornamental bed? Around trees? Filling in low spots in the turf?

 

[Colonel K0rn]

I'd use it. AFAIK the compost is what you need to be concerned about. If it's not processed all the way it could have weed seeds in it. But mulch? I'm not sure that matters as much. I wish we had some free mulch over here, my budget just went to $0 as well

Funny you should mention this, as I'm thinking that the huge poa annua problem I had this year might be due to contaminated compost that I got last year when I did the renovation.

 

[kds]

What type of area would receive the mulch? Flower or ornamental bed? Around trees? Filling in low spots in the turf?

This batch would just be for a large area that currently only has new trees that's on top of a retaining wall. Here's an overview. There are plans to add more shrubs or flowers later on but that's not really in the cards for now. The other gardenbeds have mulch that can be ok for the rest of the year.

 

[OnyxsLawn]

I used some this year as I don't have the time to redo the beds around our new house properly and the crappy bark chips were driving me nuts. I think it came out pretty good for $0 invested.



P.S. I also use the city compost but it is certified and I haven't had weed problems with it yet.