Great Western Supply – Awesome selection of soil, beauty bark, rocks, more (Olympia, Washington)

For the last two years – ever since we built our raised garden beds – we’ve been ordering our gardening mix and our beauty bark from Great Western Supply in Olympia, Washington. I adore the company so much that I wanted to do a post just about the products they offer and because I’m often asked where I get my soil for my garden. If you live in the Thurston County area – this post is for you!

My favorite things about Great Western Supply:

• Amazing customer service. A real person answers the phone and answers your questions and/or takes your order.
• Reliable delivery times. Every time I’ve ordered products that were delivered – they pulled into the driveway right on time (even early sometimes!). So grateful for punctuality!
• Great delivery crew. I set out tarps ahead of time and the delivery crews have always taken great care in getting the huge pile of soil or bark right on the tarp.
• U-haul options – Don’t want to pay for delivery? Haul it yourself for lower prices.
• Awesome products. My garden has flourished in the Great Western Garden Mix that I’ve used the last two years in my raised beds. The beauty bark is top-notch stuff and has definitely transformed our yard.
• Affordable prices. You can go to the local hardware store and spend $3-$5 on a small bag of beauty bark – or you can get a haul yard for as little as $17.95 from Great Western! See product/price list here.
• Lots of products – They have soil, organic soil, soil amendments, beauty bark, mulch, sand and gravel, decorative rock and more. See product/price list here.
• Yardage calculator – It’s hard to visual a how big a yard of soil is, but Great Western has a yardage calculator to help you gauge how much product you’ll need.

Let’s talk Soil

So you want to start a garden. If you build raised beds like we did, you’re going to need to fill them with soil! Great Western Supply has a few different options to choose from. They have a Simply Organics line, they have eight different non-organic soil varieties and they have soil amendments.

The last two years, based on conversations I’ve had with Great Western Supply employees, I’ve ordered the Garden Mix. It’s 1/3 topsoil and 2/3 mushroom compost. The mushroom compost comes from Ostrom’s Mushroom Farm here locally – which I love. I’ve been so pleased with how well my garden has grown in this mixture. I had very, very few weeds and/or sprout issues.

I didn’t supplement my garden with any fertilizers or additives last summer and everything grew like gangbusters. I give all the credit to the soil, because I had no idea what I was doing!

The Garden Mix starts at $13.95/yard (you haul) – for my raised beds, which are 8 ft x 4 ft x 12 inches, you can expect to need a little more than a yard. According to the Great Western Yardage Calculator – it says 1.19 yards. I always order extra for use in pots and extra planters around the house.

We got these big planters at Costco for $17 each. To fill them with soil would have cost nearly as much as the planter itself – but by ordering an extra yard of Garden Mix from Great Western, we were able to fill them (and other planters around the yard, more affordably. I planted Boxwood plants from Costco into the planters. They really improved the curb appeal of our house – something we’re working on as we consider putting our house on the market one in the next year or two. I’m hoping the Boxwood is as low maintenance as I’ve read it is.

Let’s talk Beauty Bark

Last spring our yard was in need of serious love. We just hadn’t put the energy into it that we should have been. Here are some photos of the embarrassing condition of our front yard (you know, the area that people can see from the street when they drive or walk by?).

After a call into Great Western Supply, we had a load of bark delivered within the week.

And after an afternoon with a wheelbarrow, a shovel and a rake, we had a brand new front yard. Can you eve believe it?

We even put it on our front side bed and it made a world of difference there, too!

And you know what? This spring our front yard was a piece of cake to update! We got a fresh load of beauty bark (we ordered medium grind bark this year, bigger than last year) and it required a fraction of the time to spruce up as it did last year. My daffodils popped up and the weeds didn’t. I like how low maintenance it is.

If you’re not sure what type of dirt or bark you need for your place I recommend calling Great Western (360) 754-3722 – or even stop in. They are located at 9418 Old Highway 99 S, Olympia, WA 98501.  Tell them Queen Bee sent you. 🙂   They have samples of all their products in their lobby.  They also recently started selling firewood and raised garden bed kits – also available to see or purchase in the lobby.

This post is sponsored by Great Western Supply. Because I’m such a fan of the company I reached out to Great Western about doing a sponsored post. They provided compensation in the form of their products in exchange for me to share my thoughts and photos. All content, photos and opinions are mine and are genuine.

Have you ordered from Great Western Supply before? I’d love to know what type of soil, rocks or bark that you have used around your home! Just leave a comment on this post and tell me your experience! 

And you can read my Raised Bed Tutorial here. They cost about $35 to make!