I had an important decision to make. I spend a lot of money on wood mulch for my landscaping and needed to decide on whether to go with wood mulch or make the leap to rubber mulch. I was also building a playground and needed to decide on the best surfacing to use for the ground cover. My decision: I replaced my wood mulch with rubber mulch for my landscaping and chose rubber mulch for my playground surface. Before I tell you how this is a money saver, where to get it, how great it looks, and why you should do it too, you may be wondering why I am even writing about rubber mulch of all things. There are several reasons. First, if you have read my other articles, I write about all sorts of things I personally do, use, buy, etc which I think other people will benefit from. Second, I'm a dad and homeowner so I often write about all sorts of different solutions to challenges that dads and/or homeowners face.
In this post I will cover both using rubber mulch for your landscaping and using rubber mulch for playgrounds. I did a lot of research on it so you won't have to.
Landscape Rubber Mulch
Once or twice a year we need to re-mulch our landscaping. I looked at rubber mulch as an option but was skeptical. I wondered if it would be good for our plants and trees and also if it would look good with our nice house. I can be a bit picky about how my yard looks and definitely did not and do not want anything close to a fake, plastic, cheesy, low-end aesthetic for my yard. So I was a bit dumbfounded when I started to research and view pictures of landscapes that used rubber mulch for garden beds, border areas, and under larger areas with trees where larger quantities of mulch were needed. I couldn't tell the difference between the rubber mulch and the wood mulch in the pictures. Actually the rubber mulch looked better in many of the photos I looked at because the color doesn't fade after a few days like wood mulch. So I had to go see this in person. At first I found a playground that used rubber mulch and it looked really sharp. I then went to a local garden center and they gave me some tips on people that had applied rubber mulch for their landscaping. So I did a few drive-by's just like I would do if I was looking at houses to buy in the neighborhood. The landscapes looked really nice and clean but not fake; I got to view both high-end homes and more moderate homes. To be honest I am more of an I like everything natural type of person but this started to pique my interest. I then made the connection that I've seen a lot of homes including those in super high-end applications use synthetic turf (or what we used to call astro turf) and "fake trees" in their yards now so I think there is a movement towards easy maintenance, clean looks, recycled products, and getting a good return on your investment.
I bit the bullet and went all in. I bought 4 pallets (8,000lbs!!) of rubber mulch directly online from a site called rubbermulchwarehouse.com. I'll talk more about why I recommend and decided to make my purchase from them later on below. It was a bit scary but in the past I have made other big purchases online such as a large quantity of engineered wood to cover all of the floors in my house. The shipping and delivery was easy and didn't really involve any effort by me - I will talk about that too below.
Going back to the details of why I decided to make the switch to rubber mulch... At this point I had no concerns about the looks which honestly is the first thing I think about when it comes to my yard - does it pass they test? Will it look good? After checking out other yards, I was actually excited to update my yard with the rubber mulch. I have areas in my yard that are more a back drop where people never even get close to and other areas where I have flowers, plants, and shrubs several layers deep. For both I was super confident that the rubber mulch would be the perfect ground cover. For the border areas up front and center in my yard, I just thought that if for some reason I didn't like the look of the rubber mulch, I would simply put wood mulch in those areas as a hybrid approach. However, I didn't need to use this fallback plan because the rubber mulch looked great. What about the other considerations? Will my plants thrive? What about the costs? How long will it last? etc... Let's take a look:
How I saved real money buying rubber mulch
It's pretty simple. I looked at the cost of rubber mulch vs wood mulch and considered a few important factors. From price shopping it was quickly clear that rubber mulch has a higher price per volume than wood mulch. However, as I always say the details matter. For instance, do I need to use the same volume of rubber mulch as wood mulch? What do the costs look like in bulk? What are my long term costs? With wood mulch I know that I have costs to re-apply the mulch either once or twice a year. These annual or bi-annual costs include product, shipping, taxes, and labor, all which add up.
So let's zoom in and do some math: 1 bag of wood mulch (2 cu ft) at the time of me writing this costs about $3.00 (without tax) at the local store and it says it will cover 8 square feet of my garden. 1 bag of rubber mulch (.8 cu ft) at the same store costs about $7 a bag and it says it will cover 6.4 sq ft of area in my garden. That means at the recommended depths I need almost 2x as much wood mulch as rubber mulch to cover the same area. However, this is really all going to depend on your application - wood mulch depth could range from 1-4 inches depending on the type of wood mulch, what is being mulched, your climate, etc. And likewise rubber mulch depths could range from 1.5" to 2" depending on preference. I'm just going to use the recommendations on the packaging for now. Back to the math...to cover 8 sq ft in my garden it would cost me $8.75 for rubber mulch (at 1.5" recommended depth) vs $3 for wood mulch (at 3" recommended depth). OK, so it comes out that rubber mulch is 2.9x the price of wood mulch when purchased in a single bag quantity. When I look at larger quantities the price starts to narrow. 5 cu yds of wood mulch at the time of writing this costs me $359 (includes free shipping, excludes tax) and to get the same coverage on the ground for rubber mulch I figure I would need to order about 2.5 to 3 cu yds, which at 3 cu yds costs $579 (includes free shipping and no tax because I am out of state) at rubbermulchwarehouse.com. That narrows the difference - now we are only talking a 1.6 multiple (and I didn't even factor in the tax of the wood mulch which would bring this multiple down further)! Aha!
Continuing with all the math this means the following:
- If you are just buying a few bags of rubber mulch and
- mulch 1x a year, it will take less than 2.9 years to break even compared to buying wood mulch
- mulch 2x a year, it will take less than 1.45 years to break even compared to buying wood mulch
- If you need more than a few bags (e.g you're building a playground or doing normal landscape mulching) and
- mulch 1x a year, it will take less than 1.6 years to break even compared to buying wood mulch
- mulch 2x a year, it will take less than .8 years to break even compared to buying wood mulch
Why do I say "less than" x years? Because when you use wood mulch you have additional costs on each application such as labor. This means that you should actually break even in less time but I am trying to be conservative here. Since rubber mulch will last a decade or more, after your break even point whether it is 2.9 years or .8 years, you start to save some serious cash that you can save or apply elsewhere. For me it was a no brainer, the cost was not so much more in the big picture and I know I will just be saving money after my break even point, which is right on the near horizon.
Is rubber mulch good for my flowers, plants, and trees?
From the research I conducted and from the performance on the ground, the answer is yes. In fact, there are some significant advantages. First, with wood mulch you actually have to be very careful each time you apply it to not under- or over-apply it. Especially, the latter which people have a tendency to do so in the more-is-better approach. Over-applying mulch is common and can wreak havoc on your plants. First, it can suffocate your plants by forming a layer which doesn't permit enough oxygen or water through to the soil and roots. Second, roots will want to grow in to the mulch on the surface and then the mulch decomposes and you have a root system exposed on the surface. Last too much mulch can actually create a thermal blanket overheating your greenery. If you perfectly apply the right type of wood mulch, at the right time of year, at the right depth, then no problem. On the other hand, rubber mulch actually does an excellent job of letting both oxygen and water through to the soil because it forms more of a porous layer instead of a wet blanket. Like wood mulch, this also depends on not burying your landscape in too high a depth of rubber mulch. For me though this is a lot easier to control because there aren't different types of rubber mulch like there are wood mulch which simplifies things. You remove the equation of knowing what is the proper depth for the specific type of wood mulch purchased for the specific climate you are in. Oh right, does the ph of your soil go with your wood mulch? Who knows. Additionally it's more easy to control because it's not applied and reapplied multiple times and its not applied on top of rotting and decomposing mulch, etc. Back to the performance aspect, rubber mulch doesn't absorb water like wood mulch does, so it is the soil that benefits directly from the water. Rubber mulch eliminates rotting mulch and the associated fungus growth. Rubber mulch also mitigates weed growth and isn't hospitable to insects, such as those that like to destroy your plants. Rubber mulch won't freeze and doesn't get too hot, so it provides a protective layer for plants that is surprisingly effective. I have also personally found that my rubber mulch isn't getting washed away during rain or windy weather. I also find that it has been easier for whatever reason to keep the rubber mulch away from the base of plants which helps me avoid crown rot. All in all, I have had rubber mulch for 2 seasons now and my plants so far are thriving and my yard looks great.
Where should I buy rubber mulch and was it easy to get?
I spent a lot of time and did a lot of research on where I should buy my rubber mulch. I looked at the big box stores, local garden centers, and online dealers who sell to the public in bulk. I looked at cost, customer service, delivery time / ease-of-delivery, and product quality and came out with a winner that worked best for me. First, I eliminated my local garden centers. Even though I want to support local business, for the similar quality product the garden centers weren't competitive with the pricing and I didn't feel like they were providing a value-add here compared to as if I was buying plants and flowers from them. I also looked at all the big box stores - it was pretty similar across the board... the total delivered pricing was high, the delivery timelines were always a few weeks out, the product availability was hit or miss, and they didn't differentiate for the most part between playground and landscaping rubber mulch on the bulk orders. Additionally at the time I researched this, anything greater than 1/2 pallet seemed to be all out of stock and when I called up to speak with someone about the product they were clueless. Last, I checked out a few e-commerce sites that specialize in just rubber mulch and personally I prefer to buy from these companies. This is the same approach that I used in the past when I purchased my engineered wood flooring online. These sites specialize in the product and have the logistics nailed down because this is all they ship every day. I mentioned this company several times above but I chose rubbermulchwarehouse.com because they checked off all my boxes. The pricing was competitive, the customer service reps were knowledgeable and always available, and my delivery was quick and smooth. So I talked to them prior to purchase as I had a few questions but then ended up just buying online right through their shopping cart. My mulch shipped the next day and the delivery service called me the day after to schedule a delivery appointment. So the following day it was delivered and it was easy. The driver took it off the truck, placed it on my driveway, I looked at the shipment to make sure none of the bags opened or anything like that, and then signed. That afternoon, I took the bags around the house, dumped the bags open in the area to mulch, and using a rake to spread it around. That was it, now I am hopefully done for the next 12 years or so!
Playground Rubber Mulch
When I was researching rubber mulch for my landscaping I also saw that it could be used for playgrounds so, in my true nature, I started deep diving in to whether it is something I should consider for the playground we were building. I was looking at a few factors: cost, safety, and looks. We weren't looking at leaving the grass under the playground as we wanted a defined area with a surface that was a little more forgiving. I compared rubber mulch to artificial turf, wood mulch, sand, and rubber tile. It turned out to be a no brainer to go with rubber mulch and there was one item that tipped the scale: safety. Rubber mulch is a far superior surface for falling on than the other surfaces that I mentioned. It is not only bouncy but it moves around when an object falls on it so it doesn't have that same force down equals force back up reaction. In doing the research I found that rubber mulch actually gets certified to meet ASTM standards specifically set forth for playground usage. ASTM is the body which sets forth standards for all sorts of things like manufacturing, safety, quality, etc. The rubber mulch I bought was certified to meet various ASTM standards for specific fall height ratings. The fall height is the threshold at which critical injury can occur from specific fall heights. So for example if I put in 6" of rubber mulch the fall height protection will be around 12' to 16' depending on which rubber mulch I use and if I compact it. I was pretty shocked at the following because I always thought sand was great to jump on. However, if I put 9" of sand on the playground I would only get 4' of fall height protection. Whoa! That is quite a difference with rubber mulch being 3 to 4 times safer when looking at the fall height rating. My playground, like most, has some relatively tall areas that my kids can jump or fall off of so when I saw this information, it pretty much sealed the deal right away. It's pretty amazing when you see it in action - my son jumps off areas of the playground that I'm pretty sure if the surface was grass, would lead to a broken foot or other serious injury. With the rubber mulch, the landing is super soft.
When friends come over, I get asked a lot of questions about the rubber mulch. Because it is loose fill and moves around, I've been asked many times if it is hard for the kids to run on. The answer is pretty straight forward: no, it is easy to run on and when a kid trips, which is not uncommon at young ages, there are no bloody knees or scraped hands. I've also been asked things like, is it safe for the environment and your kids since it is made of recycled tire. So, I ended up also researching this topic a bit too and the EPA actually did some studies on crumb rubber, which is the stuff that many schools put on the artificial turf of their playing fields. Crumb rubber is just a smaller version of the rubber mulch. They tested to see if there was any thing harmful with coming in contact to the crumb rubber such as chemicals released in to the air, transferred via touch, or leeched in to the ground and nothing was found. Most playground rubber mulch, unlike crumb rubber, also comes in colors and to achieve the color it is coated with a safe dye that further encapsulates the recycled rubber. I also liked the rubber mulch for my playground because it helps keep insects and ants away, doesn't absorb water so it dries quickly, and it stays pretty clean. I do hose it down every now and then with a mild soapy solution just to keep it fresh looking. A few other reasons that we like it is because it actually looks really nice and it helps to reduce landfill waste. On the latter, I feel good about buying something that is helping the environment in a real way. I mean, my playground prevented a large number of tires from going in to the landfill, which is a major environmental problem.
I also ended up buying our playground rubber mulch at rubbermulchwarehouse.com for pretty much the same reasons. They were very price competitive, really easy to deal with, knowledgeable on both playground and landscaping rubber mulch, and shipping was a breeze.