Mulching your planting beds and trees helps to retain moisture in the soil, slows down the freezing and thawing rate of the soil, and of course helps to control weeds.
"Fluffy" shredded hardwood mulch should be applied three to four inches thick. This will settle to a depth of about two inches. If you are mulching an area that has already been mulched, you should first "refresh" the existing mulch by gently fluffing up the settled mulch. Mulch will decompose over time; once you have "refreshed" it, you will need to add more to return to the original depth.
Simply enter the size of the area to be mulched in square feet and the thickness of new mulch to be applied. Then press the Calculate button and we'll calculate how many 3 cubic foot bags you need.
Need help determining the size of your planting bed area in square feet? Use these calculators to help you. Note, for those of you with multiple planting beds to mulch, each time you calculate the square footage of an area, we'll keep track of your running total down at the bottom. After you have calculated the size of all your beds, you'll have the total squre feet of the all the areas you need to mulch.
This page last updated on Sunday March 09, 2008.