A buddy of mine has moved to North Carolina near Raleigh, and over the ensuing few years, he has crafted an admirable garden in his yard.  A few days ago, he sent a lament about the topic of mulching his planting areas.  It seems that the "accepted" mulch materials in his village and neighborhood are a matter of weighty debate.  There are even ordinances prohibiting gardens without any mulch (no bare-naked dirt allowed).  Neighbors argue with each other about which type of mulch is acceptable; enforcing compliance with their "world-view" on earth (the "dirt" on dirt, so-to-speak).

While reading of my friend's misery, it initially occurred to me the question should not be "which type of much" but rather "whether to mulch or not".  Then I read about the "no bare dirt" ordinance.  I wonder if it comes from the "Don't Tread on Me" sentiments of yore.

By this point, my mind had already drifted to Hamlet's Soliloquy.  My apologies to The BARD.

To mulch, or not to mulch, that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous demands,

Or to take arms against a sea of neighbors

And by opposing end them.  To plant --- to weed,

No more; and by a weeding to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That dirt is heir to: ‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d.  To plant, to weed;

To weed, perchance to mulch --- ay, there’s the rub:

For in that waft of peat what stench may come,

When we have sniffled near this manured soil,

Must give us pause ---  there’s the respect

That makes calamity of planted life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of thyme,

Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud neighbor’s wrath,

The pangs of decomposed stone, the law’s parley,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit a humble gardener takes,

When he himself his flower-bed make

With a bare knuckle? Who would burdens bear,

To grunt and sweat in dreary field,

The undiscovered soils, from whose bourn

No gardener returns, puzzles the dirt,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than to try others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make gardeners of us all,

And thus the native hue of our soil

Is sickled o’er, raked and cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their mulches turn awry

And lose the name of action.