Start with material you have readily available at the lowest cost, free is always better. What do you have, grass clippings, tree leaves, compost? Every garden produces some material that can be used as mulch, even container gardens.

All plant based mulches will eventually break down and add organic material to your beds. So really your decision should be based on expense and ease of obtaining and putting down the material.

My favorite mulch for the vegetable garden is a toss up between straw and pine straw. Both I have gotten for free, both seem to spread pretty far and both are easy to put down.

I prefer hardwood mulch for my ornamental beds ONLY because how it looks. It is much more expensive compared to the other 2 mulches I use and it's a lot more labor intensive putting it in the beds.

If I could get my hands on enough pine straw I would probably do all my beds with it. But since the amount of pine straw I obtain is the luck of the draw at curbside finds, I only use it for the veggies.

Michelle

Straw and hay are not really the same thing. Straw is the dead stalks of grain plants. (like rice or wheat straw) It is a high carbon material that is often used as bedding for animals hence the term bedding straw.
Hay on the other hand is from grass or alfalfa cut while it still contains most of it's nitrogen and is used as feed for animals. Other than that, they can sometimes look quite similar. In grain producing areas, straw is something of a waste byproduct and not that pricey but in non grain producing areas it isn't cheap.
Either could probably be used as mulch if you have them easily to hand but I would suggest as others have, go for what is free first.

The pine straw mention above is probably just long needle pine needles used in much the same way as other mulch.
I've shredded or broken up palm fronds and called them palm straw.

Mulches for container plants.

I have used wood chips when I had a free pile of em. They are slow to break down and you probably want to pull them off to top dress with compost or coffee grounds and then replace them.

Sawdust or wood shavings can make nice mulch but situation is similar to wood chips.

I think leaves are great if you have them on hand, they break down quicker than wood and make a great worm habitat.

Coarse Compost is a good mulch that feeds the soil. Remember the quicker anything breaks down, the more often you need to replenish it but the more it is feeding your plants.

Shredded corrugated cardboard makes great worm bedding so I assume it would make a pretty good mulch.

Coffee grounds might be a little find for a complete mulch but mixed with some of the other's they would be great.

Even hand fulls of grass clippings would probably work as mulch though there might be some drawbacks too since grass clippings can mat and sometimes smell if applied heavily enough to compost.

And one of my favorites, Spanish Moss, though it may not be available freely in your area.

Anything organic that seems appropriate to you would probably work. Rice hulls, peanut shells, coco fiber, You name it, it's probably been tried.

Here is a link that might be useful: My bins

I've heard several bad reports from using wood chips. Rotted wood chips might be ok.

Compost is the best bet. Leaf mold is another good one.

g'day bunks,

hay would be ok except it is a bit course, can you access sugar cane mulch bailed in plastic wrap/bags? that would be ideal as it is a fine grade and easy to lay into pots. also peanut husk is another good pot mulch as would be sphagnum moss.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page