My goal for today was to continue working on the annual mulch project. The 40 bags of black mulch I spread three weeks ago will be joined by an additional 80 bags, (40 more black and 40 red). But first, I took my customary stroll around the yard to see what was happening. The Japanese Maple tree looks great !

I'm beginning to see all of the snowballs turn white on the Chinese Snowball.

Both loropetalums are looking quite red like they do about this time. These shrubs were in place when I moved to Georgia. I have to wonder if they are planted too close to the front of the house. Other loropetalums I see in the neighborhood seem to grow much larger and bloom with more intensity. The two seen in the photo above behave like they want to grow quite large. But that isn't feasible when they are so close to the house. Regardless, they bloom each spring and look great.

More white has appeared on the Reeves Spireas.

Both dogwood trees look good. The larger pink tree always does its thing each spring. The smaller white tree I planted seems to have been growing faster in recent years.

The Bridal Wreath Spirea seems to have recovered nicely from last season's less than stellar showing.

The driveway azaleas look great !

The pink half of the first cluster next to the street always blooms before the white half.

I'm starting to see a few more blooms appear on the second azalea.

The third azalea has responded quite well to the many hackings/shapings I have tried over the years.

The fourth and fifth azaleas are doing fine.

The Delaware Valley White azalea I got at a UGA Horticulture Club plant sale continues to grow and bloom very well.

The seventh azalea has also responded well to pruning.

The Korean azalea has been blooming for a while now, and still looks great.

Walmart was nice enough to put their mulch on sale this weekend. I decided to take advantage of this and bought 80 bags, 40 of each color.

A small Uhaul from my local office took care of getting everything home in one shot. This idea worked very well, and is something I'll keep in mind for future mulch projects.

Time to get started. I grabbed the wheelbarrow and decided to finish the black mulch part of the project first.

I picked up where I left off last time. The large dogwood tree got black mulch. I also see more missed irises that will be have to be moved later this summer.

The Husker Red Beardtongues and Gladiolus flowers both got black mulch.

The final load of black mulch went to the Coronation Gold Yarrows.

Next, it was time to get started spreading the red mulch on all of the irises. The two small clusters seen in the photo above each got red mulch.

The center section of irises got a layer of red mulch.

The small cluster next to the maple tree got red mulch.

The bearded iris and the smaller clusters by the pear tree got red mulch.

The small cluster next to the Reeves Spireas got a layer of red mulch.

The two small clusters next to the pear tree got red mulch.

The four clusters by the crape myrtles all got a layer of red mulch.

Then it was time to tackle the large area of irises by the camellia cluster.

This, understandably, took a while.

But eventually, I got the path of irises covered with red mulch.

I couldn't dump a whole bag of red mulch because all of these irises were a little too close together. So I broke out a smaller bucket, which worked quite well.

And before long, I had all of the mulch spread in the center of the yard.

I really like the way the new much smaller red mulch path looks.

Everything on this side of the yard is done.

The last part of the project will be to spread red mulch over the new iris area on the right side of the yard, which I'll hopefully get to next weekend.

But for now, it feels great to have this part of the project finished.