Fiinally ! Walmart put their bagged mulch on sale this week. I've been waiting for this to happen so I could get started with my annual mulch project. This means today's task was to get the 150 bags of mulch needed for this project to my house. Since the idea worked very well last year, I headed to my local U-Haul dealer to rent a box van.

My local U-Haul dealer is extremely convenient for this. Not only is the office about 1.5 miles from my house, it's also across the street from Walmart where the mulch was on sale. I picked up the van and drove across the street to pick up the first load of 75 bags of black mulch.

After that, I headed back to get 75 bags of red mulch.

The whole procurement process took me around 3 hours. And a portion of that was spent waiting for someone at Walmart who was qualified to drive a forklift to get each pallet loaded into the van. The fun part for me was unloading everything, (I don't have a forklift), and moving the mulch mountain into the garage !

Now that I have enough mulch, (I hope), it's time to get the annual mulch project started.

But first, I took my usual stroll around the yard to see what I was dealing with. The Japanese Maple tree is still dark red, and looks great against the greenery behind it.

I'm starting to see blooms appear on the Chinese Snowball.

I've got quite a few blooms in waiting.

Curiously, both of the blooms that appeared in October are still there, and still white.

Zooming in on a Chinese Snowball bloom.

All of the transplanted Monkey grass seems to have survived and is beginning to grow. I also see I've got a lot of Sweetgum tree grenades on the ground.

Some of the mystery bulbs are growing. I don't think I'll get to find out what any of them are for a while.

The transplanted Mexican Pony Tails Feather grass plants all seem to be alive and green.

After years of trial and error, I think I finally found a spot where the Otto Luyken Cherry Laurel is happy.

The Japanese Camellia cluster is doing very well, like it does every year.

The tall center section is blooming.

The two side sections are blooming, but not nearly as much.

The Goldmound Spirea are waking up for the season. They continue to do very well each year.

I'm seeing blooms appear on the Dogwood Cherokee Princess. It still looks like one branch is dead. If it isn't dead, it's been completely inactive for a while.

This is also the time for the cherry tree in the backyard to turn white.

I think this is a Yoshino Cherry tree, but I'm not sure. It was here long before me.

The repositioned Pink Muhly grass plants are all green. Hopefully, the additional space will be beneficial.

The Bridal Wreath Spirea seems to be waking up. If the past couple of years are any indication, it seems like it isn't doing too well.

The driveway azaleas look good this year.

The pink half on the first cluster next to the street always blooms before the white half, which is the case this year once again.

The white half will catch up in time.

Well what do you know !

I moved this azalea clump that I found buried in between me and my neighbor last year. Not only is it green and growing, it is also blooming, which I didn't expect.

The small clump seen in the previous photo sat behind the second azalea seen in the photo above. Both bloom in dark red, which is nice.

The third azalea is blooming.

The fourth azalea has always been the first to bloom. I don't know what variety of azalea this is. But it seems to be a miniature version of some kind. This is all the bigger it gets.

The fifth azalea seems to be blooming more on one side than the other.

The twig seen in the photo above is another azalea (I think) that was buried in between me and my neighbor. I moved it since I had a small opening in between azaleas five and six.

It looks like the sixth Delaware Valley White azalea will soon be white.

The seventh azalea is blooming nicely.

And finally, the perpetually confused eighth Korean azalea is starting to turn purple.

Time to get this project started. I grabbed the wheelbarrow, a bucket, and my gloves and got to work.

I'm keeping the same scheme that I've used for years. The red mulch will go around all of the irises, and the black mulch will go everywhere else.

I started with the small iris clusters by the front walk.

Red mulch around the small iris clusters.

A total of five iris clusters surround the pear tree.

Iris clusters by the pear tree and Reeves Spireas.

I moved on to the larger iris cluster by the Goldmound Spireas.

After that, I hit the larger section in the center of the design.

There are more irises by the Star Magnolia.

A small iris cluster by the Star Magnolia.

I then moved on to the large separate area of irises on the other side of the yard.

It took quite a few bags of mulch to fill this area.