Do not grab handfuls of mulch. Dump it out on the ground and rake through it. They have found snakes (copper heads) and other critters in the mulch still alive.
This Spring, I had bags of mulch, and before I put the mulch down, I just laid the bags around my garden area for several weeks to manage the weedy edges. . .ok, so I could have weeded it by hand, but, it was pretty thick weeds, and I had other things to do then, so I just let the mulch bags do it for me. :) However, I never had done this before, and I didn't have snakes, but, this year, a whole BUNCH of garter snakes everywhere. . .plus, a lot of toads too.
This is interesting. I have found a lizard (egg had hatched) in an azalea plant that was bought at Easter time and set on the porch until July, and my mom had a toad in her indoor planter she received when she was in the hospital. Proves you can find just about anything in dirt from anywhere! I would never garden again if I found a snake! I could see a snake crawling in a pile of mulch.....eweeew!
...so I at once googled "urban legend, snakes in mulch" and found tales of copperheads at the base of potted plants and in computers. The baby copperheads in the potted plant turned out to be brown snakes, apparently often mistaken for copperheads. Moral: if you're in copperhead country, which most aren't, beware everything... but not too much.
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