I have a sad mulch tale. I planted dozens of daylilies in the last few months, all in newly created spaces that I reclaimed after removing shrubs. In preparation for the daylilies the soil was turned over and loosened extensively as I took out as many left over roots as possible. After I got the daylilies planted I spread quite a few bags of hardwood mulch. Oh, I should mention a key point in this anecdote - as I dug the soil I came upon many, many cicadas nymphs and felt bad about disrupting/killing them so I sometimes reburied them. Within days of having spread the mulch I noticed that just about every morning there was evidence that something was digging in the beds, probably in the hunt for whatever they thought was edible beneath the surface. My guess is they were after the abundant cicada nymphs. Over the course of a few days most of the mulch disappeared and the beds almost looked like I'd never put down any at all. The mulch had gotten redistributed below level and when I moved soil back to cover critter dug holes I exacerbated the problem. Luckily no daylilies were harmed in the digging process, although one was uprooted but I replanted it in the morning. I didn't know if a skunk or raccoon was doing the dirty work but after several nights of really bad digging I put out a Havahart trap. I was surprised that within a couple of hours I had an opposum. Not surprised that they are in the neighborhood but hadn't considered them as the culprit. On subsequent nights I have had the trap again ready for visitors but haven't had any action. I never leave traps open all night so perhaps I'd have better luck if I did that but that's not my style.
