Hi there Permies,
First new thread here, I finally joined after so many of my internet searches kept bringing up good data from this board. I've got a question about a front yard, south facing bed adjacent to my home that I just sheet mulched. I'm in Northern VA, Zone 6B and the old bed had a mix of spring bulbs and weeds. The bulbs were getting sparse and I decided to start over rather than try and rehabilitate. My sheet mulch consists of;
-Cut down greens that were growing in the bed
-Green fresh cut weeds and plants (lots of bulb leaves) from around the yard)
-Cardboard 60%, newspaper 40% - it'll be interesting to see the performance of the two different areas going forward
-1" manure
-1" peat moss
-4-6" hardwood mulch
-4-6" fresh hay
-4" hardwood mulch
I'm really excited about seeing this bed perform in the coming years!
My after the fact question comes from a desire to limit any edge encroachment by the yard grass. This was a problem in the pre-sheet mulched bed and while it is effectively smothered I'm wondering if I shouldn't get a ring of either ground cover or possibly some fall planted bulbs (crocus and daffodil) as a border. The spring plantings I'm planning consist of blueberry, lavendar, possibly azaelea or rhodedendron.
So my main question is if I'm planting bulbs into a freshly sheet mulched bed, especially in the cardboard section, can I plant them 'over' the cardboard or do I need to poke holes? There is a good 18ish inches above the cardboard so that seems way to deep. Do I need to make a 'trench' of decent compost/topsoil to plant the bulbs in above the cardboard? Any thoughts would be much appreciated!
Tony
