My flower beds at our house in Utah are amazing, because of the mulch I covered them with. I usually did a truck load in early spring, and another in the fall. It would break down over summer, and then again in winter, and the soil is fantastic. Here, it's rock hard and I can barely get a shovel in it. To me, it's very obvious the difference that it makes. Now I just add bagged mulch around the plants, and I always use alfalfa pellets, but it's a long way off from being great. The problem is finding bagged mulch here without dye. It's so frustrating! I just wish I could find some pine fines because I've heard such good things about it. I might even try some at $60 a yard, if the nursery in town would actually get a truck load in. If nothing else, I'd use it for the few pots that I have, and then maybe around the daylilies, since that is too expensive for me to be covering the entire garden with it.
