Why You Should Think Twice Before Buying Mulch From Home Depot

Walk into any Home Depot during spring, and you will be met with aisles lined with tractors, lawn mowers, seed packets, planters, pots, bagged soil, and starter plants. Another common springtime sale item you'll see is mulch, the stuff used to liven up flower beds and other landscaping after winter. While the sticker price might tempt you into buying a few bags, you should definitely think twice before buying mulch from this popular home improvement store.

As surprising as it may seem, bagged landscape mulch is one of those common items you ought to avoid buying from Home Depot or any other major hardware retailer. One of the reasons for this is actually the price. Sure, a single bag of mulch that covers 2 cubic feet costs a little over $3; however, if you are planning a large landscaping project that is going to require several yards of mulch, buying the bagged stuff is actually going to be more expensive than ordering a bulk truck delivery from a landscaping company.

Bulk mulch is sold by the cubic yard at between $30 to $50, and comes without the additional packaging cost of bagged mulch. As such, when you calculate the amount of mulch you will need, the overall price for the bulk is going to be a lot cheaper than buying the same amount in bags.  However, it's more than just cost that should make you think twice about buying mulch at hardware stores.

Regardless of whether you are using it to fill your vegetable or flower beds or for general upkeep of your landscaping, you should always make sure you are choosing the best mulch for the project. When you purchase bulk mulch over the bagged stuff from Home Depot, you are making an environmentally conscious decision. Firstly, you are reducing the amount of plastic waste that would result from loads of bagged mulch. Secondly, buying bulk mulch often means you are purchasing stuff made from locally processed, aged wood with no additives. This is not always the case when purchasing bagged mulch from Home Depot.

Bagged landscaping mulch is typically made using recycled wood. While this might sound environmentally friendly to a certain extent, some of the wood being recycled comes from construction or demolition sites. As such, the wood is already treated with chemicals that will leach into your soil and potentially be harmful to you and your landscape.

Then there are the dyes to consider. Red, brown, and black mulches are common and have their visual aesthetic purposes. While there is no evidence to suggest that the carbon and iron oxide-based dyes are toxic, their application can be found wanting. Often, a good rain storm can remove color that hasn't fully absorbed into the mulch, meaning you've spent a lot of money on something that won't look as good long term as natural pine bark or other bulk mulches would.