If you’re an avid gardener or are soon hoping to be one then you’ll need to know about the battle of rubber mulch vs wood bark. While they both have great qualities we get an awful lot of questions about the benefits of using rubber mulch instead of wood bark, so that’s what we’ll explain today.

Initially the first query people always seem to have is “Rubber mulch is much more expensive than wood bark” – which of course is true. However, when you think about how often wood bark has to be topped up or replaced (roughly once a year) and that’s if there hasn’t been bad weather to aid decomposing.

Safety Play will not rot in the rain, nor will it blow or wash away, meaning that the initial cost will be your only cost. Allowing you to enjoy your garden year after year with out the stress of annually re-mulching.

Another question that we find is often asked is “Will rubber mulch cause drainage problems?” – the answer is absolutely not and if we’re being frank it’s actually quite the opposite. Safety Play doesn’t absorb or hold on to any water/moisture, therefore when it rains it drains straight through the chippings into the soil below. The reason this is such a frequently asked question is due to wood bark holding onto water, causing it to puddle on top rather than running through to the soil below.

“What about weeds?” I hear you ask, unlike wood bark the rubber does not hold and nutrients that fuel the weeds to grow, therefore they struggle to pop up through the rubber. While at the same time time the rubber chip creates a warm blanket across the top of the soil protecting plants roots.

To find out how much you will need please use our coverage calculator linked below.

COVERAGE CALCULATOR