That looks like really good quality bagged mulch, however I'd hate to have to deal with all those bags.

 

Why????? I see perfectly good bulk behind you!!!

 

Why????? I see perfectly good bulk behind you!!!

i was thinking the same thing! no way would i use bagged mulch bagged mulch here is for homeonwers,it seems in the southern states landscapers swear by it. u will hardly ever see a landscaper use bagged mulch up here

 

Why????? I see perfectly good bulk behind you!!!

It's a lot easier to move packaged product in a high density landscape. I hate shoveling mulch. one bag of mulch is the perfect amount for one worker to carry into a flower bed and spread. I just starting using this mulch company here in Austin, Texas. My cost is $1.80 per bag and I sell it for $3.94 on average.

Here in Texas you don't see that many professional companies using bulk in existing landscapes. Usually it's the guys with less education driving the piece of crap truck and trailer who buy bulk. You save a little on bulk but the labor expenses are higher and it's harder on your workers backs.

 

i was thinking the same thing! no way would i use bagged mulch bagged mulch here is for homeonwers,it seems in the southern states landscapers swear by it. u will hardly ever see a landscaper use bagged mulch up here

I'm from Maine originally and I can tell you landscaping down here is a much larger industry. Here the mulch places are making mulch year round. The volume is insane and as a result the prices are probably a lot better. Small places only sell bulk because they can't afford $100K for bagging equipment.

When they say the Rust Belt states are dying and the Sunbelt States are thriving I believe it. Austin is a popular destination for people to move to. We still have thousands of homes a year being built here.

 

If you're carrying 50 pound bags of mulch, how is that easy on your workers?

 

If you're carrying 50 pound bags of mulch, how is that easy on your workers?

They aren't that heavy, closer to 30lbs. and you put 6 of them in a wheelbarrow and roll them around. Its much cleaner and more effecient than bulk. That being said I use bulk mulch as the bag stuff here is very expensive. If I could get it for $1.80 a bag I would change over to bagged.

 

bagged mulch is way easier, just go back to the truck with the weelbarrow and throw a couple bags in instead of taking 5 minutes to load it in and out every time, will never buy anything but bagged mulch

 

There are benefits for both bagged and bulk mulch. We did a 60CY mulch top-dressing job at a commercial site the other week. Had it drop shipped on site. From there we used a skid steer and a 20SF cart pulled behind a small ZTR to get the mulch were we needed it. Between 3 guys, the job was done in 14 hours, a little prep work was involved. I don't think bagged mulch would have worked as well.

However, I prefer bagged mulch because it is easier to move and cleaner to deal with too. A CF of mulch generally weighs 15lbs, so weight isn't an issue. One guy can easily carry two bags, a wheel barrow can carry much much more. Drop bags where you need em, rip the top open, and spread. I personally feel for smaller jobs, bagged mulch is much quicker to apply.

 

I don't have a bunch of girls working for me. We use a dolly with over sized tires and wheel barrows from a place in PA that makes two wheeled commercial units. Moving the mulch is just as easy. Once we get to the beds we start dumping the mulch. It's not like I'm asking my guys to run the Boston Marathon with a bag of mulch. The carry distance is very short. Carrying a 35-50 pound bag of mulch in one trip is much more efficient then going back and forth with a shovel a bunch of times to carry the same amount of mulch.

I did 40 yards of bulk primary grind mulch a few weeks back for a native area. My crew and I will gladly take packaged mulch over bulk any day. Bags present less of a job site mess and allow you to easily meter how fast you are dumping the mulch. You can take a bag behind a hedge and into high density planting areas very easily.

 

I would love to be able to do mulch jobs with bagged mulch. Around here a decent bag of mulch is going for about $4.00 from any local garden shop or big name retailer. If I could find a supplier around here that sold bags for the same (or similar) price that you get them for, I would never go back to bulk.

I did an 20 yard mulch job toward the end of May and it was an absolute nightmare with the bulk mulch, it wasn't so bad in the larger open landscape beds but when I was spreading the mulch around the house with all the flowers, bushes, etc., it was a pain in the butt scooping it out of the wheelbarrow with a shovel or taking handfuls and walking it into the landscape beds.

 

Every job is different but here's a similar volume job we did with bagged material. The bag count was 3510 (54 pallets!). This was an existing landscape so we didn't want to make 1000 trips over the yard. We used a T190 tracked skid steer. This allowed us to move 4.8 yards (65 bag pallet) of mulch over the yard in one pass. With bulk there's no way you can move even close to that volume of mulch in one pass.

This was the equivalent of 260 yards of mulch. If this had been bulk mulch instead of making 54 trips across different parts of the yard it would have been 260 trips with a one yard bucket. Making 480% more trips across the yard would have have torn up the yard and used a lot more Diesel. Plus I would have needed the rental T190 for two days instead of just one.

Three guys did 3510 bags in four days. That about 36.5 bags per man hours. The beds were pretty open which allowed us to move a lot of mulch quickly. That about 1460 lbs. of mulch per man hour or 2.7 yards depending on what measurement of progress you prefer.

 

Here are some pics of some Pindo's I picked up for cheap. The 30G were $70 and the 45G were only $145. You can eat the fruit that the palms make. I already sold three of the 30G's for $250.

 

i have used bag mulch befor and think its a PITA then when your done you have to deal with all the plastic going to the landfill. i think if i used bagged mulch i would be laughed at here. then again 1.80 is a damn good price how many bags make a yard?

 

i have used bag mulch befor and think its a PITA then when your done you have to deal with all the plastic going to the landfill. i think if i used bagged mulch i would be laughed at here. then again 1.80 is a damn good price how many bags make a yard?

13.5 bags or $24.30

 

Here's a picture of the second trailer I ever owned. We put over 100,000 miles on this thing. We only used it for mowers and nothing heavy but we still wore out five axles and broke leaf springs twice. I sold it for $880 a few weeks back.

The trailer in in an accident where it was rear ended and it ripped the Ranch Hand bumper off the back of the truck. The trailer needed a new ramp and a little angle iron work that only cost $260. The ramp still worked but it was bent.

Another time a driver fell asleep and did a 180 pulling the trailer doing about 55 mph. The truck went off the road and into a ditch going backyards with the trailer taking the lead. It bent the trailer wheels and ruined the axle but that was it. The trailer was back on the road the next day. The truck tagged a tree just behind the headlights and did about $6k in damage.

The Formen had on his seatbelt but none of the four crew members did. We were extremely lucky the truck didn't roll and have dead bodies all around it. I've been an a-hole about wearing seat belts ever since. You don't get that lucky twice.

 

yea if i could get it at that price i would switch to bagged lol

 

Good God! I do mulching jobs every week that take 20+ Yards of mulch! How many bags = a yard of mulch anyway?

That would probably be a thousand of those bags (or more!)

 

Good God! I do mulching jobs every week that take 20+ Yards of mulch! How many bags = a yard of mulch anyway?

That would probably be a thousand of those bags (or more!)

Your only off by 730 bags! 20 X 27=540 divided by 2 cu ft per bag=270 bags. We used just shy of 300 bags today at two houses. I started the day towing 21,000 pounds.

1000 bags of mulch would be 74 yards.

 

The Texas drought has made landscape jobs harder to come by. The before pic was from June when we had a little rain and the after pic is from about two weeks ago. The summer and once a week watering restrictions starting on 9/6 have taken a toll on lawns.

The pool project was really elongated so I really couldn't get a decent set of pics. This was the second best job of the year and the only pool project of the year. We are going to be up shick creek big time if we stay dry through next year.

This was our hottest and driest year since records have been kept in mid 1800's. Our rain total is about 9" for the year and we've been over 100 F 90 times. We seem to be turning into Phoenix AZ. We got as hot as 112 F this summer. Tree's are dying by the millions and we're not going to have much left if next summer is a repeat of the one we just had. The last rainfall we had that you could actually measure was back in late June.

 

I hope things work out better for yall. Definitly been a stressful year for everybody.
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I thought I would post pics of some of our past jobs. This was a small job but it produced results both home owners on both sides really liked.

 

This is a second home for one of my CA customers.

 

This is my CA customers brothers house on the same street. It is also a second home.

 

This job was done quite a while back. It was a simple job but it looks way better then the crap the builder had put in. Once the plants matured it looked really full.