This is in the top 10 dumbest gardening things I've ever seen, and it reminds me of spray-on hair in a can. The purpose of mulch is not to have a color, it's to maintain moisture, adds to the tilth of the soil as it decomposes, and helps suppress weeds in planting beds.

Dumb statements like this, "Two full grown trees are needed to produce one cubic yard of mulch" show that this product is a farce. "A full grown tree" does not yield any particular quantity of wood because different trees are different sizes.

I also think they've gone off the mark with their marketing. Hippies are not concerned with the color of their mulch. They should be marketing this to more narcissistic groups. This is a dumb, useless, and possibly harmful product. What the heck is in it, anyway? "...unique combination of pigments, resins and additives allow it to penetrate..." Ewww! I don't want any of that stuff in my yard. If you really want to do that, a cheap can of spray paint is only $1.

Have to agree about the 'two full grown trees' thing. I thought (most) mulch was made from bark, tree tops and other waste generated from processing the rest of the tree into lumber.

If you want to renew your mulch after summer sunshine has bleached it you could mix it with another material that is the color you desire. Just top off with a 1-2" layer of something you like.

To arborist chips or aged sawdust horse bedding + manure I've added used coffee grounds for an end result of darker mulch. Even shredded leaves might do the trick for you.

I suspect that timgoblue is a sales person for this enterprise. Coloring mulch is NOT a new concept, by any means. Nor is the turf dye, which this company also sells. I remember a salesman trying to sell me such a product about 20 years ago, when I worked for a private golf resort in SC. You can go on line and find hundreds of similar products for a lot less money, without the annoying web site.

Others have tried to break into the private homeowner market , but have been mostly unsuccessful. Products such as these can be found in the storage buildings of high end golf courses, resort grounds, private estates, and the like.

Most of us 're-color' our mulch at least once a year, anyway. It's called putting out more mulch. You see, Tim, mulching products are supposed to eventually feed the essential microorganisms found in the soil. As wood chips and pine straw break down they help sustain that life in the soil. A simple top dressing of new chips or straw replenishes the depleted material.

I heard they're working on a product that you can spray on the sky to make it more blue!

I use to like colored mulch... then realized that the color only last a few months, yet the mulch wasn't anywhere near ready for more to be added.
Yes, colored mulch can really make a flower bed look much nicer... but to keep it looking that way, you would be continuously adding way more mulch than necessary. which is probably what the manufacturer wants! :)

Since mulches should fade into the background and not detract from your garden,and contrary to what some "garden designers" are pushing, colored mulches are garish and offensive to the eye. I have seen planting beds about 2 x 2 covered by that very offensive red dyed garbage mulch with one Stella D'oro daylilie planted in it. Ugliest thing I have ever seen.

I don't use the stuff but I've been to many a show home and almost without exception the landscaping is accented by coloured mulch and people eat this stuff up (not literally). I can see a person using a product like this to spruce it up if they were selling their home. People can deny it all they like but cosmetic touch ups will have an influence on lots of people. That is just the way of our society (for now).

Lloyd

I hate wood chip mulches no matter what color they come in. They make me think that I'm at MacDonalds. Also, I like to feed my gardens with my mulches, and wood chip mulches interfere with that.

My own feeling is that mulches are an essential tool for the health of the garden, but I don't want to see them. If you can see the mulch, that's an empty spot that something will try to grow in and then you'll have to weed it. I'd much rather see a groundcover growing in between and under bigger plants or trees.

Mulch gets applied liberally in the fall and plants grow through it in the spring, hiding the mulch from view. Of course, my idea of mulch is anything the trees drop on the beds plus my compost.

Claire

I hate wood chip mulches no matter what color they come in. They make me think that I'm at MacDonalds.

Don't say that too loud. Ronald's got a temper.

{{gwi:310611}}

Ouch, annpat! Maccas don't get my money, but in my environment, chipped trees are great mulch.
I try to have the mulch dissappear under all the plants, like I always thought it was supposed to.
I find the idea that mulch itself could be considered a garden feature rather odd.

My issue with wood chip mulches is that they take a long time to break down, so are slow to nourish the soil beneath, and they cannot be easily disturbed to apply nourishing mulches. And because I associate them with shopping centers and Maccas, they look very 'commercial' to me.

I like nourishing mulches.

feijoas and annpat - I feel you are kindred spirits - so much common sense (ie I agree with everything you say!) Coloured mulch? Hideous. I don't even call it mulch. I call it spreading compost on the garden. And after that I expect the plants to hide it asap. I have used wood chips between my soft fruit when the council has kindly dumped some at the allotments but I would never actually BUY it.

Well, duh, Flora! Of course we're kindred spirits! I've always known that!

Many casual gardeners and homeowners don't understand the difference between mulch and compost now. The recent trend to sell mulch with a colorizer that makes it look black will not help.

Well, there's no difference between mulch and compost if you apply your compost as your uppermost amendment. I'm far more upset that people think that 'mulch' is synonymous with wood chips.

I mulch with compost.

There is a huge difference between what mulch is and what compost is.
A mulch can be any material, including compost, that is used to cover soil to aid in suppressing "weed" growth, aid in soil moisture retention, aid in controlling soil temperature, and providing some organic matter to the soil.
Compost is a digested organic matter product that is used to amend soils to aid in either opening up, or filling in, the soils pore spaces and to feed the Soil Food Web that provides necessary nutrients to plants. Compost could be used for mulch although that is not the best use of compost.

Tell me what mulch is better than compost, kim.
Granted, compost also serves a garden well when incorporated into the soil, but I can't think of an overall better mulch than compost. I rate chipped leaves the second best mulch. Seaweed is nice, but slippery. Wood chips take too long to break down, and, until they do, make fertilizing a garden (organically) a little problematic, unless you use teas. Newspaper is a nice mulch, but ugly, so requires a cover mulch.

My point, though, was that new gardeners are increasingly under the impression that 'mulch' means using a wood product---thanks to commercial landscaping examples.

Funny that people have such strong negative oppinions about something that is good for the garden and the Earth.
If it takes a little "cosmetic surgery" for people to mulch their soil with an organic material, all I can say is good for them.
In most gardens I can think of, I would prefer colored mulches over plastic or rubber mulches.
Wouldn't most of you ?

My neighbor likes decorative rock as her mulch.

My good friend likes to use compost as her mulch.

I like shredded wood chips in my flowers but straw on my veggies.

I can't make enough compost to mulch with so I use what I can make as a soil amendment. While I did buy compost for the veggies this fall, I can't afford to buy compost for everything, hence the shredded wood chips.

I think everyone has a favorite way of doing things.

Val

I have to use whatever I can get cheap or free. I've used a lot of shredded municipal yard waste mulch, which has built up my soil wonderfully, especially in the perennial beds where I don't dig much. It has wood but a lot of composty stuff too.

Unfortunately it has a lot of weeds and diseases, so I'm going to move away from that and start using tree chips from the power company. Slower organic matter input into the soil, but it will still provide the important roles of weed supression and temperature and moisture control.

I do the best I can with what I've got, that's my motto.

I think that spray paint red (orange?) much is just ugly. My neighbor had a truck load of it dumped in his driveway several years ago. He spread it on his garden within a day. His driveway had been stained orange ever since. Makes me really wonder what they use to color it.

Karen