Mulch, Pine Straw and River Rock in Acworth and Across Georgia

Three materials, the same three jobs

Pine straw, hardwood mulch and river rock all do the same work. They hold moisture in Georgia clay, they keep the soil temperature from swinging, and they keep weed seed from getting light. Which one you want comes down to how the beds are planted, how often you want to think about them, and what the house is made of.

Most properties end up with two of the three. Straw in the wooded back, mulch in the front beds, rock in the side yard nobody walks through.

How much you need

Mulch and rock are sold by the cubic yard. Pine straw is sold by the bale. Here is the math you can do on the back of an envelope before anyone quotes you.

Mulch and river rock

1. Measure the bed. Length times width gives square feet. A bed 30 feet long and 4 feet deep is 120 square feet.
2. Pick a depth. Three inches for hardwood mulch in a planted bed. Two inches for river rock.
3. Divide by 324. Square feet times depth in inches, divided by 324, gives cubic yards. So 120 times 3, divided by 324, is 1.1 cubic yards of mulch.

One cubic yard of hardwood mulch covers about 100 square feet at three inches. One cubic yard of river rock covers about 160 square feet at two inches and weighs roughly 1.3 to 1.4 tons, which is why rock gets wheeled instead of carried.

Pine straw

A standard square bale covers 40 to 50 square feet at a settled depth of about three inches. That same 120 square foot bed takes roughly three bales. A thousand square feet of bed takes 20 to 25. Bale size and compression vary by supplier, so we count the beds on site instead of guessing off a photo.

How deep, and where not to put it

• Two to three inches in a planted bed. Past four inches you starve the roots of air and hold water against the crowns.
• Keep every material about three inches back from a tree trunk and off the stems of shrubs. Material piled against bark holds moisture, and moisture against bark rots it.
• Do not stack new mulch on an old matted layer year after year. If what is there is already three inches and packed, some of it comes out first.
• Keep river rock out of beds you plan to replant. Getting rock back out of a bed is a bad afternoon.

When to refresh in North Georgia

Pine straw is the one that moves. It breaks down fast, it slides off a slope after a hard rain, and it flattens under the weight of a wet spring. Most yards up here take straw twice a year, once in early spring after the pollen quits and once in late fall.

Hardwood mulch holds its color for a season and its structure longer than that, so once a year in spring is normal, with a light top dress in the fall if the beds face the street.

River rock does not break down. What it does is collect leaves and pine needles, and that layer turns into soil, and then weeds root in the top of your rock. Blow it out twice a year and rock stays right for a decade.

What happens before the material goes down

• A fresh spade edge cut on every bed so the line still holds after the spring rain
• Weeds and crept-in turf pulled out of the bed, roots and all
• The old matted layer raked out where it has gotten too deep
• The drive, the walks and the turf blown clean before we pull out

Delivery only, or delivered and installed

We do both. If you have the weekend and a wheelbarrow, we will drop the material where you want it. Most people would rather it be finished when they get home, and that is the job we usually get called for.