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 ...

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 ...

Let’s first start with soil. It's the loose stuff on the surface of the ground that covers over half of the earth’s land surface. It’s made up of minerals, organic matter, broken rock particles, many ...

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 layer of wood mulch and compost at highway construction sites can reduce rain runoff and lessen erosion, according to research from the LSU AgCenter. A three-year study, funded by the state ...