Shredded Mulch in Virginia: What a Bulk Load Covers

A tipped load of shredded mulch looks alarming the first time, because a few cubic yards make a heap taller than the person who ordered it and the beds it is meant for suddenly look small. Pick some up and the reason is obvious: it is light, stringy and interwoven, natural brown hardwood in medium shreds that knit together rather than sitting as loose pieces. In a Virginia summer, where humidity holds and thunderstorms arrive hard, that knitted texture is what keeps the layer on a bed instead of in the driveway.

Medium brown shreds that knit, at a fifth of the weight of stone

Shredded hardwood, in consistent medium-sized shreds, natural brown in color. The shreds vary in length, which is what lets them lock together, and there is nothing granular about the material.

Two things follow from that. The first is weight, or the lack of it. The site's own figures put shredded mulch near 600 lb per cubic yard, which is about a fifth of what a yard of crushed stone weighs, so a load that looks enormous is not heavy. The second is that it is organic and will break down, feeding the root zone as it goes and needing topping up as a result.

If you need a specific dyed color rather than natural brown, ask before you order rather than assuming.

Does the 2 to 3 inch figure mean the depth it arrives at or what is left by midsummer?

Two to four inches is the working range for beds, and that is the settled depth rather than the fluffy depth it arrives at. Mulch compresses noticeably in the first weeks.

• Flower beds and shrub borders: 2 to 3 inches is usually right. Deeper looks generous and holds too much water against the crowns of smaller plants.
• Tree rings and foundation plantings: up to 4 inches, kept clear of the trunk itself rather than piled against it.
• Slopes and bare ground being covered against erosion: 3 inches, and expect to check it after the first hard rain.
• Around new planting in a hot, humid summer: the deeper end of the range does more for moisture than the shallow end.

Spread it across the whole cleared surface rather than leaving gaps between plants. A patchy layer gives weeds the light they need and the bed dries unevenly.

How many yards of shredded mulch do my beds take?

Square feet times the depth in inches divided by 12 gives cubic feet. Divide by 27 for cubic yards. Mulch is usually bought by the yard, but this site's figures allow a tonnage: about 600 lb per cubic yard, roughly 0.30 tons.

• Example, front foundation beds totaling 320 sq ft at 3 inches: 320 x 0.25 = 80 cu ft. 80 / 27 = 3 cubic yards, about 0.9 ton.
• Example, a planting ring around a hot tub deck, 14 ft by 14 ft overall with a 10 ft by 10 ft deck inside it, at 3 inches: 196 - 100 = 96 sq ft. 96 x 0.25 = 24 cu ft. 24 / 27 = 0.9 cubic yards, about 0.3 ton.
• Example, a bed strip 42 ft long and 3 ft wide alongside a parking pad, at 3 inches: 126 sq ft x 0.25 = 31.5 cu ft. 31.5 / 27 = 1.2 cubic yards, about 0.4 ton.

The mulch calculator checks these figures.

How do I get the yardage for a curving border or a ring around a deck?

Beds almost never are. Break the shape into pieces you can measure and add them up.

• Split a curving border into a run of rectangles along its length, measuring the width at several points and using the average.
• A triangle is base times height divided by two.
• A circle is radius squared times 3.14. A ring, like the one in the example above, is the outer area minus the inner one.
• For an irregular island bed, pace the longest line and the widest line, multiply them, and take roughly three quarters of that as a working figure for an oval shape.

Round up to the nearest quarter yard when you order. A shortfall means the last bed stays bare until the next load.

Where is stone the better cover?

Three jobs come up constantly and mulch suits only part of one of them.

A hot tub pad. Nothing organic belongs under a tub. The pad carries a concentrated static load on ground that has to drain, and mulch neither carries weight nor stays put when water is splashed across it constantly. That build-up wants a compacted base with #57 Stone in the drainage role, or whatever the tub manufacturer specifies. Mulch belongs in the planting ring around the outside, which is the example worked through above.

A side-yard dog run. A narrow side yard in a humid Virginia summer stays damp, and a mulch surface there holds that damp, breaks down quickly under traffic and tracks indoors on wet paws. An angular small stone such as 3/8" Crushed Stone drains after a storm, rinses with a hose and stays where it is raked.

A turnaround or parking pad. Not a mulch job in any form. A pad carrying vehicles is a compacted base, which here is 21A, with a wearing course over it. Mulch belongs in the bed strip along the edge, worked out above.

In a Virginia summer, what do hardwood shreds do that River Rock and Pea Gravel cannot?

Where a bed keeps emptying itself into the drive every storm, the honest answer is that the water needs dealing with first, and stone after that.

What needs doing before the mulch truck turns up?

Clear the beds of weeds and last year's tired mulch, edge them, and decide where the heap goes. Mulch is light to shovel but bulky to move, so the tipping spot wants to be near the work and on a hard surface you can sweep. Delivery is arranged at checkout from your ZIP code and the truck needs clear access to somewhere it can tip.

Choose your yardage and a date on this page, and plan on spreading it within a few days rather than leaving a heap standing through a wet spell.