Landscape Design: To Mulch or Not to Mulch?

Designing a landscape bed can overwhelm a person with all the options available. In the next several installments of the Serenity Outdoors blog, we’re going to lay out some of the more important items you’ll want to consider for your landscape design. So listen up! Tune in! Follow along! Or we’ll do things to you. (Just kidding—we still don’t bite. ;-)

To mulch or not to mulch?

Landscape Design: To Mulch or to Rock?

One of the first things you’ll want to decide is a ground-cover option to keep down weeds and make for less maintenance of the bed. There are two main non-plant options here (we’ll cover plant ground cover in another installment): rock or mulch. Of course, you’ll want to consider the aesthetic effects of your choice as a background against which the rest of your decisions are going to stand out. Contrast is especially important here and can interact with both your choice of plants and other features as well as the color of your house’s siding, for instance. 

Understand that no choice of cover will completely remove the need to deal with weeds. Mulch should be installed over bare dirt from which sod and other growth has been removed (no weed mat!) and will require a yearly top-off of mulch to keep your landscape bed looking fresh and to discourage weeds from taking root in a decomposed top layer of mulch. A darker mulch can provide needed contrast, whereas a lighter mulch can add some color to your project with red and yellow options available. 

Rock, on the other hand, tends to give a brighter look, especially if river rock or marble varieties are used (lava rock can, of course, give you that color if you’re looking for it). Rock can be a great choice if you’re wanting to cut down on weeds. Once again, dig out your bed to bare soil, this time laying weed mat with plenty of overlap in the seams (4–6”). You’ll still get some weeds eventually, understand, but the great thing about rock is that you can use a blow torch to scorch those weeds into oblivion, no chemicals required. Rock is also easy to clean up in the fall and spring when the leaves are falling, if deciduous trees are a part of your outdoor spaces (where mulch presents more of a challenge and often requires light raking).

Rock'n & Roll'n

You’ll also want to consider the impact of your ground cover on the overall health of any plantings you decide to install. Mulch will retain more water, something to consider in relation to an existing or planned irrigation system. Consider the amount of average rainfall and the watering needs of any plants to be included in your landscape beds. Too much water can be as bad as not enough water! 

Where mulch allows for spreading plants to propagate throughout a landscaping bed, potentially requiring more maintenance, rocks will tend to keep plantings more in place. In addition, rocks will allow for quicker drainage, obviously. You’ll want to consider the existing grade and drainage carefully: any existing issues like a leaky basement, puddling, or heavy runoff during rainstorms may be impacted by your choice of ground cover, and a covering of river rocks may be a good solution for such problems as long as the underlying grade is adequately sloped away from your house or other structures. 

In our next installment, we’ll talk about edging options, so stay tuned. Send us any questions and do enjoy your outdoor spaces while the weather is warm and inviting!