How Much Mulch Can You Handle? A Beginner's Backyard Garden Adventure

How Much Mulch Can You Handle? A Beginner's Backyard Garden Adventure
By Marissa Siegel

As a beginner gardener, I take pride in making decisions that force me to reach my goal of a landscaped garden not unlike the famous botanical gardens in the heart of San Francisco. Before moving, I visited and luxuriated in the serenity there, almost completely ignorant of the time and manpower it took to preserve. This ultimately led to my first lusting after being a Gardener.

Fast forward six months and there is a massive pile of mulch, branches, dust, and logs in my driveway. It's almost as tall as me. There's mushrooms in it, my neighbors are clearly confused, and nobody knew it was happening. That includes me. Surprise! It's ChipDrop.

When I first moved to Portland and we got our new house, I heard about a program called ChipDrop. It's a program that connects local arborists to home owners in search of mulch or logs for their home. I signed up on their simple, straightforward website expecting to get a truck load immediately. Needless to say, it had been over six months and I had completely forgotten that I signed up. That is, until my husband texted me a photo of the mulch pile to end all mulch piles while I was at work with the captions: "Did you order mulch?" and "I can't get out of the garage" among other things... Undeterred, I headed home with a feeling of there's no turning back now.

There's nothing like shoveling mulch in the moonlight. It cleanses the soul, or maybe not. After about 10 or 15 loads of mulch in the wheelbarrow after work, the pile barely looked touched. Although, I did score an invite to a dinner party while shoveling. Nothing prompts a neighbor to be social like me in my rain boots waist deep in tree remnants. I suppose when I moved to this neighborhood, making friends was on the to-do list. As I washed my hands afterwards and looked at my reflection, I also noticed a classy smear of tree muck on my forehead. I obviously appeared unintimidating.

With all of this surprise gardening, I'm bound to start becoming what my east coast people would describe as a "crunchy Oregonian." I can't wait! Now there's the actual flowers to plant, rain barrel to DIY, and other such shenanigans I will be researching on Pinterest. Wish me luck, or better yet, send someone with a green thumb.

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