Natural. Don’t try to match your ground to your house.

Nice new driveway.

Natural light or darker?

I like dark brown pine nuggets.

I prefer black.

Nothing to do with color but those in the dark picture are normally lighter in weight. On your other house I believe you said that house was in Florida. Since this one will also be a flip do what is needed to the house then change the mulch.

Off topic but you have some nice specimen woodies that it you have a specialist nursery in the area you could contact to see if they would want. Perhaps a trade, mulch for plants.

I'd go with black bark. It's a little harder to find, but it would be more subdued than the bright, natural color of new chips.

I'd skip the pine bark kind and do the other, but a color that is similar to the dirt in your second picture.

ETA: I'm not a fan of pine bark as it seems to float away when it rains.

Get the natural--either of your samples is fine. Get whatever is cheaper. I wouldn't get black or other artificially colored. They tend to look bad quickly.

Fori-

The black bark (not mulch) I've been using for years retains its dark color. Part of the reason is that part of the darkness is from an aging process. I can't vouch for all black barks, though, and there may be lower quality ones that don't look good over time. I buy mine at a yard materials store, not from big box stores.

Black bark? That must be a regional thing. Where I live near So Cal, I've never seen that, ever, in anyone's yard. Not saying it look bad, just pretty surprising-looking. I prefer a natural bark look myself, and don't care if it's lighter or darker, but the smaller the chips, the better it looks to me.

Mrs. S.-

It's pretty widely available, but just not as common as some of the other barks:

I've used black for the last 5 years and love it.

I love the look of black mulch like kudzu shows, and they stay nice and black and really just look like very rich topsoil.. But when I tried to get the look by buying bags of black wood chips at HD for my small community garden plot, they fade in a couple of weeks to regular gray brown, so the bagged ones are not the same as what they're selling through landscaping companies. I'm not sure what you have to look for to get the kind that do not fade.

As someone suggested I am getting the cheapest brown recycled bark.

^^ All of which has been discussed thoroughly and in considerable detail previously on the Soil, Mulch and Compost forum! Don't need any blog posting to arrive at the same conclusions.

"recycled bark."

lol What is "recycled" bark?

I dare say the color of mulch correlates with politics in the US now. Red mulch goes with red hats..

Black mulch is dyed and that dye leaches into soil and isn’t best for plant materials. With your gray house, a redwood looking wood mulch would look great. I would also trim your bushes a good bit. Some white seasonal flowers would help. Good move on driveway.

It is not the dye in dyed mulch that is of concern. Most of that is plant based and perfectly safe to use in the garden. What IS of concern is the wood used in dyed mulch. It is recycled scrap lumber - shipping crates and pallets, construction debris and similar "junk" wood, often contaminated with petroleum and other potentially toxic chemicals. And the fact that dyed mulch just looks so very unnatural. Mulch should be completely unobtrusive, not the most obvious feature in the landscape! Matching it to house color is never a consideration.

There is also completely natural black or nearly black mulches available, usually compost based. This is what I use myself and also in clients' gardens - very dark, finely textured and richly organic.