MULCH & BARK | What Your Landscaper Is NOT Telling You!

Hey everyone, Mike Andes here, Augusta Lawn Care. Today we're talking about what your landscaper is not telling you about your bark mulch installation. Making sure you're not getting ripped off and make sure you have the information to know what's going on with their project and whether the pricing is accurate. So let's go ahead and jump in, get some tips, save some money, and let's go install some mulch. Let's go.

So the first thing you want to keep in mind is the weed barrier. So this black woven fabric is heavy duty. It's actually installed under a lot of gravel driveways and pathways to keep weeds from coming through the mulch. If I'm going to spend a bunch of money on mulch, I don't want the weeds coming through. And if you're not wanting to spray or pull weeds by hand, probably a good option to have some weed barrier or weed fabric put down. Now don't go for the garbage, the stuff that's like three or four feet, the little tiny rolls, or worse yet, the stuff you can like basically poke your finger through. Get this nice heavy duty fabric that's going to be woven. It doesn't allow any UV penetration, so it keeps any weeds that are even existing from growing. So in fact, you might be able to just lay this out over existing weeded beds, put new mulch over the top, and never have to pour the weeds or spray the weeds because this will kill it. This will kill the weeds and keep them from growing back in the future.

So the biggest cost of your mulch installation job is actually not the mulch itself, the materials, it's actually the labor that goes into the project. And so what you've got to keep in mind is that the axis to where we're installing the mulch is a big, big component of the price. So if you have to go up hills like we are in this video, if we have to shovel it over a chain link fence, and if we have to go through small, tiny backyard gates where we can't get machines, it's going to cost more because it's going to take us way longer. It's going to be a lot more hard work too. If we can't get a skid steer or a dingo or something like machine wise, and we have to do it all by hand, it's going to get a lot longer and the cost a lot more money. So the thing is, if you're getting pricing and someone's like, oh, I'll charge you per yard and they're Doing that over the phone, you got to keep in mind the fact that one yard of material might only take ten minutes to install. If it's right next to the curb in the front yard. That same one yard of material might take an hour to install. If it's the backyard, through a gate, up a steep hill, and then over a fence. What in the world? But this happens. And that's going to increase the cost if the where we're installing the material is in some crazy spot on your property.

So that brings up the next question. Should I have the mulch blown in? So these big blower trucks, they come in on these semis, and they are able to blow the bark directly into the beds. Now, in full disclosure, 15 to 20 yards, a massive property that you might have. It's a good idea to have that stuff sprayed in. It's a lot cheaper. They're able to install it much faster, typically because they don't have to use wheelbarrows or shovels or equipment like skid steers to move the material. They just blow it in. But here's the problem with that. If you have small plants or little shrubs, they might get damaged because they got this massive hose. They go in there, they blow it in there really hard and fast. They can smother the little plants. So you've got to keep that in mind. And sometimes it makes a big, big mess. Whereas we're going to make sure that we actually do it by hand. We are careful around those small ornamental plants. So anything above 15 to 20 yards, probably cheaper to go with blowing in. But keep in mind, there is additional cost in terms of cleanup, and you might lose some of your plants if they're not careful when they're blowing in the material. But smaller jobs, 4, 5, 6 yards, it's definitely cheaper just to install it by hand or with equipment.

So there are different types of mulch. You've got to keep this in mind. First of all, there's fine versus chunky. So fine mulch is also called beauty bark. And because it's so fine, it actually, over time, over the course of a year or two, will disintegrate and decompose into the actual soil itself. It's so fine, over time, the water will just make it decompose. It'll just go right into the soil. But it looks really good, and a lot of people really like it. The more chunky stuff is going to be really good for weed control. And that's the beautiful thing about mulch is it's going to have you're going to have less weeds and you're going to have less watering required for any plants that are covered or, or shielded by this mulch. We don't have to water all these plants as much because now the direct sunlight is not hitting the plant. Also, it's not going to burn any soil. So there's also different types of colors of different molds. So there's black, there is brown, there's dyed colors of mulch like red. I've seen even some crazy stuff like some black mulch that's been stained. So there's lots of different options. But the biggest changes, the biggest differences are the size of the mulch, if it's checking chunky or if it's really fine.

I hope something was said that's going to help you when it comes to your product and your mulch installation. You could ask your landscaper, what type of mulch am I getting? Do I have weed fabric? How long is this going to last? Or is it going to disintegrate because it's fine mulch? These are the type of questions you want to ask your landscaper and make sure you understand what the pricing is. And if you're putting mulch up a steep hill, the backyard, through a gate, over a fence, expect it to cost more. I'm Mike Candies from Augusta Lawn Care. If you're interested in getting a mulch installation job just like this, check out AugustaLawcare Services.com we have over 50 locations around the United States and we love to be of service. We'll see you on the next video. I'd like to invite you to Landscape Summit. It's the conference we have in January of 2022. Go to landscapebusinesscourse.com conference for more details. We talk about P4P efficiencies and how you can grow your lawn care and and landscaping business. I look forward to seeing you there.