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 ...

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 ...

Some mulches are better at blocking weeds, some are more attractive, and some contain organic matter that breaks down to ...

Discover how Mark from Self Sufficient Me creates a productive chicken compost system to enrich soil for planting garlic in ...

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 ...

It takes time and effort to turn yard waste into mulch and compost. It doesn't help when people put trash in their bins. Here's how to help.

Every gardener wants the best soil for their garden. How do you know if your soil is "good"? What do you add to make it good? When you go to a plant nursery or the gardening section of a big box store ...