Blown Mulch vs. Manual Installation

Adding mulch to your residential or commercial property is an excellent way to enhance the overall look of your landscape. Mulch is versatile, comes in a variety of colors, and has many benefits other than just how beautiful it looks. Not only does mulch improve your curb appeal, it can also prevent unwanted weeds from sprouting up.

Mulch is known for retaining moisture that in turn, waters those much-needed areas where plants, flowers, and bushes reside. Additionally, mulch is a great natural alternative for would-be rubber surfaces.

Mulch Installation

When it comes to installing mulch, there are two main options:

• Professional installation
• Do-it-yourself (DIY)

Many professional mulch installers use the mulch blowing method, which consists of a truckload of mulch and a long hose connected to an apparatus that literally blows the mulch into place. Because of the equipment used, large projects can be done in a fraction of the time that it takes to do it yourself by hand.

The degree of difficulty that’s involved in installing mulch on your own depends upon the size of the area you’ll be covering. It can be as simple as buying a few bags of mulch from your local home improvement store and literally pouring it directly in your flower beds or around your trees, or as difficult as pulling out the wheelbarrow and shovel and preparing to spend your entire morning and afternoon in the yard hauling loads of mulch around your yard.

So which method is better for your mulching job? To make that decision, there are a few factors that will need to be addressed: job size, labor, time, cost, and overall look you hope to achieve. Once you weigh your options based on these factors, you’ll be able to make a more informed decision on whether to do-it-yourself or to use a professional to install your mulch.

To help you choose the best installation method for your landscaping project, let’s take a more in-depth look at what goes into installing mulch.

Consider the Size of the Job

One of the main factors in deciding whether or not to hire a professional mulch installer is size. How much of your yard will require mulch? The actual size of your yard doesn’t matter as much as the size of what will be covered by mulch. If your mulch job is rather large such as a playground or several flower beds, or in the case of commercial businesses needing to beautify their landscape, professional installation would be the best option to go with in such instances.

For much smaller jobs such as a single flower bed, or the space around the two trees in your front yard, then it would make more sense buy a few bags of mulch and do it yourself. In other words, if you’re positive that you’ll need less than 10 or so bags of mulch, then go for it on your own. But if you happen to underestimate the amount of mulch it’s going to take to finish your project, then unfortunately, you’re going to be in for a back-breaking Saturday afternoon.

Time and Ease of Installation

Professionally installed blown mulch requires absolutely no physical effort by the customer. The installers will basically back up their mulch-filled truck to your worksite, drag out a long hose, turn it on, and blow the mulch securely into place. It usually takes only a few hours for professionals to complete even the largest of landscaping projects.

Of course, you can buy your own mulch and do it yourself, but while it may seem as easy as dumping mulch into your flower beds, it’s going to require many days of sweat equity to make it look appealing and last until next season without blowing away with the slightest of winds.

Cost Effectiveness

Aside from the time and effort that you’ll spend installing mulch on your own, the only other major costs required will be the mulch itself. That’s provided you are going at it alone. For large residential or commercial projects, you’ll most likely need to hire a crew to assist you. With that, you’ll need to factor in cost of labor.

Cost of professional installation includes the price of the mulch that you choose plus labor, which both depends upon the amount of mulch your job requires. Professional installation labor costs can be cheaper than you hiring a crew who will most like be paid hourly for an all day job. In this case, you’ll have to simply do the math to decide which one is best for you.

Curb Appeal or No Appeal

Blown mulch is packed into place by the force of the air from the machine used and doesn’t require any additional raking or manipulating to make it appear to your liking. This is what makes the process so much faster than manual installation.

Manual installation will more than likely require raking, tampering, and grooming in order to give it the desired curb appeal you’re looking for. Additionally, you’ll less likely have to maintain your mulch every time the wind blows when it’s correctly installed the first time by professionals.

So Which Is Best?

When you consider all of the factors that can go into choosing to have your mulch professionally installed versus manually installing it, blown mulch is far less time consuming and laborious, and depending on the size of the job, professional installation can be far more cost effective in the long run.

For more information and to further weigh your options, contact GetMulch.com, today!