I’m thinking about putting down rubber mulch down in my landscaping to replace river rock that I don’t like. Anything I need to know about it? The reviews on Lowe’s/Home Depot websites are positive but I trust this place more.

Also, what do you all use to keep weeds rom growing up through landscaping? I put the felt weed block fabric down when I did the rock 3-4 years ago and it doesn’t do anything now.

TIA

Our school used a rubber mulch type situation for the kids on the playground- turned out it was not great and the kids kept coming home filthy- the petroleum in the rubber was problematic. I believe it was removed and replaced with regular mulch (which I feel like it’s a mold haven but what do you do). I’m not sure what you’re trying to grow but my sense is that it would retard everything, not just the weeds you’re trying to keep out-plus what leeches into your soil then?

I had pea gravel down along the house. Took it out a couple of years ago, planted some shrubs, and put down the rubber mulch. I did put down two layers of landscaping cloth first. Some weeds will still get through (mostly along the edges) but it's not really a problem. I like it. Low/no maintenance and it looks nice. Fairly spendy though as I recall and it took a lot more than they call for in order to get the coverage that I wanted.

I used the Vigoro brand.

NO. All of the rubber mulch washed away with a heavy rain. I prefer cedar mulch. Smells good but is expensive.

I would be afraid that my lab would eat it. That damn dog will eat anything.

I have 2-3 inches of rubber mulch around my kids playground. I have landscape timbers around it 1-2 tiers above the mulch & it's on very flat, sandy soil on top of a hill. That is pertinent as I've seen it floating...
I have pink granite in the front landscaping & mulch in the back. I hate mulch & fought with the wife against it, but we had 0 landscaping back there & just bare dirt wasn't cutting it...

Of the 3, I'd do the pink granite again, but I'd prefer a different color. I have good geotextile fabric under all 3 & there will be some weeds grow on top or through holes in it. Pre-emergent & roundup keep it mostly clear. The gravel is the best for weeds, but it's also the easiest to use pre-emergent on (I can hang a boom over all of it.).

For a playground, I like it. This is the 3rd year, it isn't dirty/dusty & my kid has face planted a few times jumping off the swings & hasn't been to the ER. I will probably put ~10 more bags down next year where it's settled/moved in the traffic areas. It's a helluva lot more expensive than mulch, but the cheap stuff would probably be growing mildew. Not good to faceplant in...

We have quite a few flower beds right up against the house and I use it right along the house to keep termites away.
I would not use it for an entire bed, it’s not very attractive and it gets hot and kind of smells. I have pulled out some steel belts out of it as well.

I put it on a patch under a maple tree where grass wouldn't grow. Worked well but after a few years of maple tree afterbirth and whirlybirds it wasn't very attractive.

I've since moved and now use western sunset river rock from Menards. Much easier to keep looking decent.

I looked into it once, don't remember the details, but it turned out not to be last word in mulch. I with I could remember, but either it didn't age well, or poisoned the soil, etc. I'd look into it more if I were you.

I have rubber mulch in a flower bed that was here when we bought the house (so I don't know what brand it is, it's ground up tires though).

My wife has been stuck from the steel belting sticking out a few times now. We are getting ready to pull it all up and replace it, just not sure with what yet.

My neighbors rubber mulch kept floating away into the street during heavy rains. After two season of gathering it up, they removed it and went back to normal mulch.

I had a flower bed in front of my house covered with weed barrier with cedar mulch on top. At first the barrier kept weeds out but after a few years the mulch degraded to finer material and just got deeper each year, mixed in with leaves and debris it started to spawn weeds on top of the weed barrier and mulch. I finally tore the weed barrier off and replaced the cedar with rubber nuggets, no regrets after 3 years.I add a few inches of new rubber nuggets each spring.

I found Menards (if they are in your area) had a far better price than Home Depot and Lowes.

When we bought our house new the contractor placed wood mulch around a few small flower beds. We decided to expand them so we outlined them in bricks, placed weed barrier down and filled them with wood mulch.

Here in Florida the sun is strong and it would fade the mulch in 6 months so we decided to replace the wood mulch with rubber mulch.

This is all I use around the house now. We have it in several flower beds and have never had a problem with it washing away after heavy rain and several hurricanes over the years.

I have never had to remove it due to fading and I usually keep a bag in the shed to freshen up when we move plants around.

I guess the reason it has never floated away on me is because we put up a brick outline around the flower beds.

We added a 3 small retaining wall areas in front of our house 3 years ago. We went with rubber mulch and it still looks great. We lined the bottom with weed barrier and have very little problems with weeds. We bought our mulch from MulchDirect.com. We ended up needing 2 full pallets but it came in bags, which made it really easy to work with.

My neighbors did and they hate everything about it.

The worst, they say, is that it’ll never go away and in the summer it smells like hot playground tire by every open window.

We tried it once. It smells like shredded tires...

...and not in a good way.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
We tried it once. It smells like shredded tires...

...and not in a good way.

My experience too.

Nobody want to live next to a tire dump, esp. while it rots in the rain and mud and breaks down and degasses in the sun. I wouldn't want that stuff on my property. If I needed a lot of mulch, I'd prefer to have natural mulch, and replace it every so often. Yes, which includes hauling out the old stuff, and bringing in the new stuff. Sometimes just adding new mulch on top of old creates other problems.

If you have deciduous trees then it’s no good . You can’t blow the leaves out without losing most of the mulch.

By now, I’ve learned there is no free lunch in anything, and not just in economics.

Not to sound like a hippie, but the more you deviate from natural materials, the more problems and unknown risk you have.

The Romans used to drink water with lead lined containers. There’s no end to the amount of health issues we have due to oil this/lead that/asbestos this that we did back in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s etc. Pesticides and herbicides cause cancer etc etc.

My point in all this is rubber mulch isn’t exactly a place I’d be comfortable rolling the dice on in my yard, especially as it’s already shredded - so it likely won’t stay in place, but will leach into the ground, be aspirated, etc.