Pinestraw Mulch – The Fastest & Cheapest Landscape Solution That Really Works

 

Whether you have tons of landscape experience or you’re a complete beginner, pine straw is an awesome option for replacing or establishing ground cover for your yard. Admittedly, there are lots of other ground cover options such as mulch, rocks, etc. But, straw has several distinct advantages over most other landscape ground covers.

 

Pine Straw Mulch Price

In my neck of the woods (Atlanta, Georgia) a bale of straw cost about the same as a bag of mulch. Both of which can be purchased from your big box home improvement stores. Straw is typically sold by the bale. One bale of straw covers anywhere from approximately 35-45 square feet. The bales of straw sold at big box stores in my region of the country are approximately 12x12x24 and weigh around 12-15 pounds.

 

For comparison, a similarly priced bag of mulch from the big box stores is going to weigh around 20 pounds and will cover about 6-7 square feet.

 

This means that even on a bad day the straw will cover 5 times more ground than the mulch. So, with both products being the same price, straw is obviously much cheaper.

 

Easy to Transport/Deliver

Once you decide to purchase you’re ground cover, you are now tasked with transporting it to your home or property. The big box stores typically have the straw in the parking lot in a tractor trailer that you can just back up to and load. The mulch on the other hand is usually kept inside the store. Which means that you have to load your bags on a cart and bring them out to you vehicle. Not a huge problem, I know, but it is definitely less convenient.

Now the big transportation advantage of pine straw comes when you need a large amount of landscape material for your project. You see whether you buy 1 or two bales or you buy 500, the straw will be packaged and bundles with twine the same way.

 

On the other hand pine bark mulch is not sold in plastic bags once you begin buying in bulk form the landscape supply. You see pine bark mulch is usually only sold in plastic bags at home improvement stores. These bags do make the mulch easy to handle but bagged pine bark mulch is really intended for completing smaller projects.

You also pay a premium when you buy the mulch in small bags. If you have a big job you will need to buy mulch in bulk to save money and time. But when you buy in bulk, the pine bark mulch is sold by the truckload and is actually scooped up from a pile and dumped on the back of the vehicle that will be transporting it (dump truck or pickup).

This requires alot more work to move the material around once its been dumped at your property. And even more work if you’ve hauled it on a pickup truck, because you are going to have to remove the mulch from the bed of the pickup BY HAND.

 

Ease of Handling

The straw that is baled by machine typically is well compressed and bound together with string. The string is usually orange, but I’ve seen it in blue, yellow, etc. When the bales of straw are bound, compressed, and haven’t “gotten loose,” they can easily be transported in one hand. This means that you can conceivably carry between 1-4 bales of straw at once, depending on your level of strength and experience.

 

Easy To Install

Because straw covers more ground than mulch, you don’t have to buy and transport as many bags. When you install straw, you take a handful of straw  in each hand, then you shake it out of a small area until you have good coverage.

 

Speed of installation

This one should come as no surprise given the information discussed above. For many landscape procrastinators, speed is the deciding factor. I cannot tell you how many times I have literally spread straw in the final hours leading up to having house guests. If you complete your ground prep work a day or two before and only leave the straw installation for another day, then you can literally just blow through it. You can realistically get all the straw down on the ground in a couple of hours. But, there is one final step.

 

Rolling/Tucking your edges

Once you have all the straw spread in the areas that you want, at the thickness you want, you will likely need to tidy the straw up a bit. You can do this by using a rake, a blower, or by hand. I usually rely on the blower because its sooooo much faster.

 

Procrastinators Notes:

Can you complete a moderate size Pine Straw Mulch Project all in One Day?

Possibly.  If you are just putting down straw, it is conceivable that you can do this entire project in a day. But that is assuming that the only task you are going to be doing is “slinging straw.” Now, if you are planning to do any plant bed preparation work like removing weeds, or installing landscape ground mesh, then you are probably pushing it a little too far. But once again it’s hard to talk in absolute terms without knowing how many bales you have to spread, or your physical stamina, or the weather, etc.

 

Can you do it in a day and a half?

If you have prepared the area that you will install the straw on a previous day, and if you have brought the new straw to the property, then there is no reason why you can’t  install the straw and cleanup in 4 hours or less the following day. Which means that you can have it ready by lunch time depending on what time you get it started in the morning.

 

If you are considering putting straw on top of old straw, be aware that if what’s on the ground isn’t broken down, it may look kind of funny. And, remember that you don’t want the straw to be built up too high in the flower beds.  

 

Please be aware that the goal is to make the exterior look better. So, when we answer the question of how fast we can complete the project, we must measure that time against how good the finished project will look. After all, you want folks to say things like “you’re landscape looks great”, or “who does your landscaping?” We absolutely do not want to hear comments like “Did you do it yourself?”

 

It’s okay to MOVE EXPEDITIOUSLY, but make sure that you maintain good working standards to ensure that your end results look good.

 

Good luck, I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to tell you that you should have started earlier? I’m not going to say that.

 

I’d rather say that if you can pull this project off in short time and it looks good, then you spent just the right amount of time planning and executed. Stay hydrated, work efficiently, be safe!