I got a couple of bags of bark mulch last fall, some of which got spread over the new tulip bed, but there was still a bag and a half left. Since I didn't have a nice neat hole to fill, I was worried that the bark would look really sloppy if I just heaped it around the plants. The solution was to buy some of that plastic lawn edging stuff, out of which I made a ring about 2½' in diameter and 4" high. Open the ring, wrap it around a shrub, close the circle, and stuff it with mulch the way you'd spoon batter into a cake pan. The shrubs are still small enough that once the mulch was in I could just lift the ring up leaving a perfect circular pile of mulch behind. Genius!
Only problem is I ran out of mulch. Another bag should do it. I just have no idea when I'm going to do it, given that I'm heading for Jersey Friday night.