Allow these leaves to remain in place as they form an excellent natural mulch.

Straw also makes an excellent mulch.

Chips are an excellent mulch over cultivated ground and are often used for perennial or shrub borders.

Another excellent mulch is wood chips.

Many times stable mixtures of manures with bedding straw are used as an excellent mulch for shrubbery plantings and around trees.

The sheets of newsprint lying at your feet would make excellent mulch.

Most gardeners have learned the composting-recycling ritual, and compost is an excellent mulch.

Pine needles also are an excellent mulch and they accumulate and decompose nicely to acidify soil.

An ample supply of bark chips (the small ones) make an excellent mulch.

Sawdust is an excellent mulch when used in a thin layer of two to three inches at the most.