"Rubber Tire Mulch - User Review"

By Ron Stultz

28 May 2009

Summary: if you have a well defined and contained area, perhaps. Otherwise I do not recommend.

Background:

Hardwood mulch, shredded or otherwise, is decomposing in the bag and does not last more than a year once on the ground.

Cyprus mulch last for years but is so light weight, it washes and blows and apparently virgin Cyprus trees are cut to make the mulch (no good).

Mulch made out of recycled vehicle tires. Although expensive, (very), decided if I could put this mulch down once and it lasts for 15 years, it would be worth the cost and effort. Suppose to last and not wash out or blow. So I bought 2000 pounds of the stuff, which came in 50 pound bags (most folks would have a problem lifting such bags) and put it down. Thought 2000 pounds would cover all I wanted to cover but only covered about half of it.

So mulch has now been down for 2 months or so and I have learned this:

    - Does wash out in heavy rain storms where applied to a hill. Hill does not have to be very steep either.

    - Once it washes, pain to get it out of the grass and have to or it kills the grass underneath.

    - I use a string trimmer and have found I am going to have to move the mulch back from

      the edge of every area as I just can't trim edges without slinging pieces of mulch into the yard.

    - It is always on the move. I can find hunks of the mulch in the garage, driveway, patio. Wondering if it can crawl.

Would I recommend recycled vehicle tire mulch? Really not sure at this point. Have to fix what I already have down by moving back from area edges and move out of areas that are going to continually wash.

Going to wait until 2010 to decide if I want to buy more and finish my yard. Like a lot of things, just no single magic bullet for do it once and forget it yard mulch.