Why Do We Need to Mulch?

Mulching landscape beds is one of the most critical aspects of maintaining a great looking home or business. No matter how great the plantings may be in a particular garden, a dirty, unkempt mulch bed will spoil the entire aesthetic. On the other hand, a mediocre landscape planting is greatly enhanced with a clean, crisp mulch bed defining the space where the plants are located. So how can you improve the fresh look of your landscape with something as simple as mulching. Well..........there a quite a number of options out there these days from the traditional wood mulch to decorative gravels to rubber mulch.

Lets start with the traditional, time honored wood mulch. Shredded bark, pine nuggets, wood chips, finely ground compost, and various shredded hardwoods are just a few of the many options in the wood mulch category. Personal preference and budget generally determine which material is used by a homeowner to mulch their landscaping. So, which one is best. Again, there is no one answer for every landscape situation. The more finely ground mulches decompose more rapidly and generally contribute to the overall plant health more so than the more coarse textured mulches. For our customers, we generally use a shredded hardwood mulch. I personally prefer the dyed mulches due to their longer lasting qualities. All of the hardwood mulches are relatively cost effective and provide an effective solution to maintaining good aesthetics and healthy plants.

Mulches that rock! Most of my new landscape customers want to add a decorative gravel mulch to their new landscaping. Reasoning for rock mulch varies. The common advantages to rock is the lasting quality of the material. Rock doesn't need to be refreshed each year like mulch does. It provides a slightly better weed barrier than wood mulch, however, controlling weeds that come up in the rock mulch is more critical. The most common reason customers decide against using decorative gravels is cost. Prices for a decorative gravel range from $40 per yard to $200 per yard. Most nice gravels are in the $70 to $120 per yard range. The labor to install is 2-3 times the cost of installing wood mulch due to weight issues. Overall, the upfront cost for a gravel mulch is about 5 times the cost of wood mulch. This cost generally evens out over the lifetime of the two mulches due to adding wood mulch each year. The upfront cost generally drives the decision towards a wood mulch.

A newer type of mulch has surfaced over the past 10 years of so with varying degrees of success. Rubber mulch is an expensive product which replicates the look of wood mulch. The cost savings is seen over time since the rubber mulch can last for years and years. One of our customers has had rubber mulch for over 10 years and it still looks new. They have added very small quantities over the ten years, but not much. Some advantages of rubber mulch are lowered long term cost, fewer pest problems, less favorable environment for weed development, and a nice consistent look. I never thought I would recommend rubber mulch for a landscape, but I wouldn't recommend against it either.

There you have it. The most brief summary of mulch types that I can come up with. With a few google searches you can find more information and opinions than you would ever time to sort through. Thanks for reading my thoughts. Email me at anytime with questions or further explanation.