Yard & Garden Order Sheet

Depth is the number people get wrong

Area is easy. Everyone measures the bed. What decides the bill is how deep you go, and three inches against four is a third more material for the same border.

The depths on the sheet are the ones the calculators use, and each has a reason behind it:

• Mulch, three inches. Enough to stop weeds germinating, not so much that it holds water against the stems and suffocates the roots.
• Topsoil, four to six inches for a new lawn. Two inches is only for leveling something that already grows. Beds and vegetables want eight to twelve.
• Raised beds, six to eighteen. Six is fine for salad. Most vegetables want twelve. Carrots and potatoes want eighteen or more, and they will tell you if they do not get it.
• Gravel, two inches on a path. A new driveway is eight to twelve inches in layers, and only four if you are topping up what is already there.

Bulk or bags, worked out before you go

A cubic yard is twenty-seven cubic feet, which is thirteen and a half bags of the standard two cubic foot size — so fourteen bags once you round up, because you cannot buy half a bag.

Bulk almost always wins past about three yards. The catch is not the price, it is the tipping: bulk arrives as a pile where the truck can reach, and if that is the far end of the driveway then the saving buys you an afternoon with a wheelbarrow. The sheet has both prices side by side so the decision is arithmetic rather than a guess made at the counter.

What the sheet does not decide for you

Settling. Bark mulch and screened topsoil both compact, and a bed filled level on the day sits lower a month later. Order to the depth you want to end up with rather than the depth you want to see, and expect to top up a raised bed after the first season.

Delivery access is the other one. Measure the gate before the truck is booked, not after.