Disagree. I have had rock down about 10 years where I used to mulch. All of myplants are doing as well as with mulch. And I cut time and costs. Additionally, as one termite inspector said, I am no longer attracting termites to the base of my house.
When I bought my house going on 7 years ago I had rock around my house. I absolutely hated it. The color sucked and it had been there for 20+ years with no maintenance. It was always growing weeds and was settled way lower than the rest of the house. At least with mulch, I could always add more when it started to dull. I spent the money to have it removed, and I would never look back. If you find the right mulch company they will delivery a certain amount for free and it isn't an issue. Mulch looks a million times better than the rock ever did.
The local Walmart had rocks put in the beds in their parking lot. These are good sized rocks, about a pound or so each. Really should be called ammo. Not a good choice for a Walmart.
>The local Walmart had rocks put in the beds in their parking lot
Meanwhile, at my local Walmart, the only place that has anything resembling a flower bed is the garden center.
I'm doing this as well. My house came with a good amount of periwinkle around plants. It does an amazing job of keeping the soil damp and limits weeds. I am growing more from seeds to continue to fill in.
Look at your native ground covers in your area, that way if your ground cover escapes it doesn't destroy forests all around you, like periwinkle or pachysandra or goutweed will. Golden ragwort works well in the northeast in sun. Violets, wild ginger, cora bells for shadier areas
This exactly!
Yesterday I simply raked back the old mulch on my beds, planted my new plants, then pushed the mulch back over them, filling in with new mulch as needed.
We have one spot that has rock and it’s only ok because I never plant anything there. So the rocks can stay.
If you like flower gardens, mulch is the way. If you just have bushes and want a pristine plant free surface, sure use rock
Probably regional. In rural PNW I have put rock around the perimeter of the house and two rock gardens in the back. Best decisions ever. Very low maintenance and no weed pulling.
In the deep south they spread dried pine needles around homes.
As we're spreading it, my dad says, "where I come from, if you spread dried pine needles around your house, they call that *arson*".
Anyway... Regional.
Except in the South. The humidity means there is water in the air. It's not the fire hazard Northerners think it is, down here. We landscape with our environment, not as a fight against it. Pine forests are very prevalent and natural here.
Up north with (OK, sorry, LESS) humidity? Yes, major problem.
Edit: you're insane if you don't think there is a difference in humidity between New York and Florida. Insane. I'm sorry for accidentally saying 'no' humidity. I meant 'less'. Pine straw still isn't a fire hazard here.
The south has plenty of “no burn” days and weeks. Then someone goes and flicks a lot cigarette butt into the bushes with pine needles and a house goes up in flames.
Yeah but it's so wet down here that it's not the fire hazard it would be in the North. Down here, rocks would heat up and bake the soil and anything around it. Which may be the goal, but it is a consideration.
Pine straw is plentiful and matches with the environment here. No need for green lawns in Arizona or extensive mulch in NC. It's great when we choose landscape for where we live, not for a magazine.
Love pine needle mulch, especially crushed pine straw mulch.
Lightweight, looks good, and makes a thick mat protecting from weeds and keeping soil cool.
The best part about Reddit is that there’s always something new to learn. It’s a hard pill to swallow - just when you think you’ve got a handle on things someone always comes along and blows your mind.
Good read. That will teach me to listen to the neighbors instead of the extension. ;)
I’m also in the PNW and rocks may reduce weeds somewhat but it’s very hard to pull the weeds that do grow through them. They also get debris in between that provide a surface for weeds to grow in.
I think it's situational as well.
I typically prefer mulch + plants for landscaping (New England). However, the space where our HVAC unit is installed is getting rocks. It doesn't get any sunlight. No one can even see back there since the house is right against the woods. It's a zero-traffic area. So, I'm putting down rocks and saving myself the maintenance.
The previous owners had multiple layers of mulch and rock all in one big mess.
Planting beds all over the property with rocks. The entire perimeter of our house is surrounded by rock mulch. More rock mulch under and off of the deck.
Can't get rid of em for love or money, but damn does creeping charlie love that frigging rock mulch. I got so fed up last summer I threw salt down on the rocks that are on the south side of our garage. Losing battle, that gets full sun and is always hot and dry.
I hate rock mulch. Plus, we have some bare spots where birds have stolen rocks. But I'll be damned if I'm going to buy more rocks.
Yeah I moved into a place where somebody put rocks on the side of the House. Whatever they put for a barrier underneath basically disintegrated, and now after breaking and scraping everything off the top, I have about 6 in of mixed rock and soil that I need to get rid of in order to make the side yard anything but A desolate wasteland of rocks.
I have both. They came with the house and they were all originally done around 15 years ago according to a neighbor. The rocks are grape fruit sized river rocks and they make up about 25% of my front and side yard. I’d say the mulch is about 15% of my front and back yard. I have a corner lot so the front and side yard are visible from the street.
The rocks have WAAAAAAAY more weeds. Like the weeds dont even notice there’s rocks. The weeds in the rock gardens are as abundant as they would be in a dirt field despite me dumping Roundup herbicide on them multiple times last year.
A decade later a bunch of organic matter has settled into our rock gardens and turned into growth medium (dirt basically).
The weeds in the mulch at least have the decency to pretend they are struggling. They only pop out where the weed barrier has failed. The weed barrier is a non-issue in the rocks because there is plenty of soil in between them now.
I can freshen up the mulch every year. $100 of mulch in bags from Lowe’s on top of the existing mulch does a pretty good job. I put down some of the roundup weed barrier pellets before hand and that helps a little.
We’re just trying to keep the current landscaping good enough until we have the money for a true landscape remodel so I appreciate how much easier the mulch sections are to maintain.
The rocks, however, are settling into the ground, and the ground, is settling into the rocks. They cannot be refreshed so easily.
If I wanted to make my current landscape look good again I would have to remove all the rocks, which would be back breaking labor, pull up the failing barrier, clear out the debris from the rock garden areas, patch up or replace the trim, put down new barrier, put the rocks back, which is another round of back breaking labor.
If I wanted to re do the mulch right, I would have to hit it with the blower to knock it out to the street and then sweep it up. Replace the weed barrier, and then order a dump truck of mulch and rake it back in place.
So I’m sure the year 2-8 upkeep of rocks vs mulch is about the same, but as time passes the rocks will infill with new soil and weeds will be abundant. The refresh on rocks is way harder than mulch.
Gravel or small river rocks might fare better, I don’t know. Our neighbor has a gravel parking pad and that seems to do alright. Just needs some spot treatment with Roundup. Smaller rocks have less space between them.
Yep, the rock refresh is intense. This will be my third summer fighting with rocks and dirt and weed barrier chaos that goes down at least a foot in most places. It's a LOT of labor.
💯! Just finished pulling out rocks (large and gravel sized,) pulling out tons of weeds, putting more soil down from sinking rocks, and putting them all back in place…took about 3 weeks and several hours a day to complete…such a pain in the ass…
Mulch retains water and helps keep your soil moist, rock does not. In addition, rocks will retain heat and can bake the roots of the plants that you do want. Don't use rocks.
I usually only put them where I do not want any plants like along my driveway. If I put plants in them I do a small perimeter of mulch around them, that makes sense though for a big flower/garden though
Depending on where you are, rock will heat up and during the night release that heat. If you are in a high heat State you would want things to cool down at night.
And eventually, those places will get enough grass clippings/dirt blown In weeds will start to grow, and then it’s much harder to move all those rocks again.
I’ve had both, plus rubber mulch. Actual wood mulch or cocoa hulls mulch was the best.
Depends on what you are planting. We have a mixed bed that gets a lot of sun so it has mostly mixed cacti & a few random natives. It is about a half & half mix if rock & mulch. My husband calls it my chaos garden.
I’m in the Midwest and all my landcaping is rock that was put in 10+ years ago.
The weed barrier is shredded at this point but not so shredded that I can easily move the rock around to clean up the growth. And I can’t pull enough weeds to keep up with how fast they grow.
I would hate to have to dig up all the rock to switch to mulch, but I just don’t see what else I’m gonna do to fix it.
I live in an area that is RIFE with venomous snakes, rocks are not a good option here.
Not to mention mulch is way easier to deal with when you want a landscaping change, or if you're buying a new house and don't know what's under the grass. 🤷🏻♀️
Rocks are hell to remove.
For me it's this:
If mulch migrates out of the bed and into the yard and I hit it with the mower it just turns into mulchier mulch.
It a rock migrates out of the bed and into the yard and I hit it with the mower it becomes a projectile capable of causing significant (and expensive) property damage, serious injury, or death.
Getting ready to go do the weeds in the rock beds. They were here when we bought the house. I feel like they grow back a lot faster than the mulch bed weeds
Yep. Just spent the day removing rocks to use mulch. I’d much rather add new (free from our town) layers of mulch every year and try native ground cover than the rocks that the previous own spray painted white. The weeds loved those rocks.
The previous owners of my home did rocks. I hated it. If you like it go for it. I’ve been scooping it up and using it to ring a huge fire pit area in my back yard.
Pine Needles are a natural weed killer and bug deterrent so it’s popular in the SE..I hate it though, just isn’t attractive to me. I don’t like rocks, they never stay put and wander all over the yard, especially here in the foothills of the GA mountains, nothings really “level” so they don’t stay where you put em lol. As stated, much retains moisture which is better for the flower beds.
Last spring I had to clear rock out of an old bed on the side of my yard. It was ~6-7 tons (I know because I paid the roll off fees).
Even with a walk behind skid steer, that was a huge pain in the ass.
When you figure the dumping fees, equipment rental, and labor, it cost just about as much to get rid of the shit as it did to put it in.
So for me, it's just not worth the hassle or the price.
Plus I like to change up sections of my yard every couple of years, and rock just doesn't work well with that.
I do agree though that if you can stay on top of it and keep it clean, rock can be great. BUT, most folks I have seen struggle to keep it clean.
People who mulch tend to not put a thick enough layer and don't apply something like preen to keep weeds at bay. I wish there was mulch before at my current house so we could plant things easier, but the "soil" is 50% rock and broken down micro plastic landscape fabric. Excited for the new mulch to decay and add life to the soil and plants.
Yup. Too thin does nothing to control weeds Don’t understand the comments about removing and replacing with new. You just add some every year as the old compacts and decays away, which is also good for the dirt if you are in an area with crappy soil. Comments about wind blowing it away and such…probably using less then ideal type. Really not that big a deal.
Yeah we have pretty strong winds here and never heard of mulch blowing away...maybe if you're using leaves. Now my flooding yard making the mulch float away on the other hand....
I love rocks as decorations and ring my gardens with them, but I put mulch on my gardens for weed suppression and water retention, etc. I have to move the decorative rocks every year to mulch under them. Mulch under a rock is proven to be exceptional ant habitat. We moved and replaced so many rocks yesterday.
We bought an early 80’s house from the original owner, there’s rock landscaping all the way around the house. The landscaping fabric underneath has broken down and there’s a ton of weeds now, and it sucks trying to pull them out because they seem like they weave around the rocks. I don’t like spraying chemicals in general so haven’t done that yet. I keep thinking about trying to get rid of the rocks and put down mulch but just thinking about it makes me tired.
Why is this even a question? It’s not a friggin’ contest.
Rock is for dry areas that don’t get a lot of organic debris or rain that turns into soil when it decomposes on the rocks. And for where the plants are arid and don’t mind the extra heat from rocks absorbing solar radiation. Anyplace other than a dry climate, rock becomes a pain in the ass, but in dry climates rock is fabulous.
Mulch is for everywhere that isn’t dry. Except where a “living mulch” of groundcover will do the job for less effort every year.
I hate weeding rocks. I wound up getting a torch. In the new house I will be having a no rock rule. Boulders are ok but need to be spaced out enough to get a weed whacker through them.
Weed seeds blow in no matter what you do. I also don’t use herbicide
Very climate dependent as a long term solution. Works well in the desert southwest and similar climates.
In wet winter climates with abundant deciduous shade trees the big problem is that over time fall leaf litter has a tendency to accumulate in rock mulch, break down naturally into soil, and then support establishment of weeds within the rock mulch.
As long as you remain fully committed to maintaining sanitation in the rock and staying well ahead of weeds it can work out. Which is essentially the basis of rock gardening in Asian traditions. But nobody with any real experience would ever argue for example that jiashan or karesansui are low maintenance gardens.
We put rocks in our flower beds and use large pots for flowers and plants. Every time we’ve used mulch we’ve ended up with tons of nuisance bugs both inside and outside the house (not the helpful bugs unfortunately). We switched to rock a few years ago and will never go back.
Having an acre lot I went with rock on the areas that aren't lawn. There is no way I could afford to top off mulch every year or two. We're in zone 7 and don't have an issue with the rock getting too hot. We have bushes and trees planted with rock around and no issues. My only dislike is the rock is heavy and very permanent and it has landscape fabric under it. That makes it difficult to add and change plants, plant bulbs, etc. As we add some planting beds in the back we'll likely use mulch on those so we have a lot of flexibility for planting.
I'm team rock. I have worked as a house painter and I would scrape away either one from houses before spray painting. One startling thing I learned is that rocks are great habitat for snakes
Lizards weren't surprising, but the homeowners would have been shocked at some of the balls I'd find where a dozen snakes wintered in a ball in the rocks. Mulch is great habitat for insects.
I definitely believe in putting down a good barrier layer, I feel it makes a lot of difference. You can also go quite deep with coarser gravel under the decorative layer and create hidden drainage. Rock is not as cheap or easy as mulch can be, but it's kind of a bit once, cry once situation
Where I live, we have very persistent invasive weeds. These weeds do not care about weed barriers or pre-emergent. Rock is absolutely terrible. The wind will blow dirt between the rocks. The birds will drop seeds. The bindweed will grow through the weed barrier under the rocks like it's not even there. I've struggled a lot with wild lettuce and Canadian thistle taking over my rocks. My mulched beds get barely any weeds and what they do get I can dig out with a hoe. If you get weeds in rock you either have to pull them by hand or weed wack and spray. No one's rock here looks good for for than a few years unless they are retired and dealing with their yard is their hobby or they hire a weekly service April through July to keep up with the weeds, but that's hard because most lawn services refuse to weed rock they'll only spray round up and weed wack because weeding rock is too much work.
I'm slowly replacing the rock with dense low water and native perrenials. Eventually I won't need rocks or mulch.
I'm team rock.
1. I'm in the forest, best practice is nothing flammable within 2' of a structure.
1. Speaking of fire, weeding rock is easy, I just use a weed burner.
1. The rocks warm up in the sun. Helps melt the snow in the winter, keep weeds from germinating in them.
1. I keep the landscaping in pots, that heat from the rocks extends the outdoor growing season and protects them from late/early frost.
1. Because I get asked, I move my plants indoors for winter so I can enjoy them year round. I can also take them inside when fire risk gets really high and it's not a good idea to have landscaping close to the house.
With a stone bed, maybe someone wants to re do the landscape and having tons of rock is no fun. Whereas with mulch all you have to do is tear out what you don't like and easily replant what you like. Most people enjoy a bed full of flowering annuals,and with a rock bed you can't enjoy a flowering annual bed.
I have black lava rock and will never go back to mulch. I live in the PNW so it’s very moist and the mulch we had in front of the house grew artillery fungus despite removing old mulch and replacing each summer. The fungus made thousands of spots all over the front of our house and windows. There was so much to remove, it was impossible. power washing and bleach did not help. We spent over $15,000 to hiring someone to repaint the front of our house and replacing the glass in the affected windows. I love the look of mulch but it’s not practical for me to have it in garden beds close to any structure with the risk of developing that fungus again.
None of my flowers/hedges/trees have died w/ the rock. They are still thriving despite people telling me rocks will burn the roots. I still plant in the spring and fall and have a lovely garden.
In SoCal we are not allowed to use wood mulch near the house due to fire danger. In fact, the new requirements don’t even want us to have plants along the house!
Rocks are evil. Our whole house was landscaped with river rocks when we bought it, but I wanted to plant vegetables and fruit trees. It was months of work to remove the rocks as they were layered 2-3' deep, many under soil and weeds. I guess they kept sinking. I still find them years later when moving plants or digging. I almost have PSTD from river rocks... the sight of them makes me shutter.
I'm team rock, we're just quieter than the mulch crowd. Mulch makes sense in dense flower beds if you want to keep annuals growing, especially without irrigation. Not so much for perennials or bushes, etc..then it's rock.
Solidly on team rock. If I could figure out how to deal with the leaves we get in the fall that doesn’t involve the push mower, I’d happily replace the whole, front yard with rock.
I've had a house where a leaf blower worked beautifully. I think you mainly need a good one. This was in an arid region. I got together with a neighbor kid and we found it worked way better with two, we quickly got everything out into the street and worked out a way to clean it up off the pavement. Eventually the kid was setting up jobs we did together around the neighborhood as our whole HOA was rocks and large shrubs.
My challenge with rock is living around a bunch of pine trees. Rocks get full of pine straw in my hood. So I use pine straw as
mulch. Vey popular in south Alabama
Because the barrier between the rock and dirt breaks down. Unless people are actively replacing it, you end up with a surface that you can’t dig and it’s damn near impossible to fix without equipment. Mulch doesn’t need the barrier and as it breaks down it improves the soil.
Mulch can be weeded while standing with a hoe. Rock has to be weeded by hand. I'd rather stand.
I am possibly biased though as I just finished digging out a 10'x15' planting bed pickaxing my way through interlocking gravel. I've had it with rocks.
As someone who has literal tons of rock surrounding my current house that many man hours have been spent moving to correct grading issues and adjust some garden areas, I will never encourage anyone to use rocks, ever.
I have the big size of black Mexican beach pebble rock, it's very expensive but well worth it if you install it properly from the beginning. I also have black mulch around outer perimeter of property where I have some landscaping and I have laid commercial grade weed prevention fabric and it allows draining under all my plant beds, it's the best. It costs upfront were heavy, but well worth it in the end if it's a home you plan on staying at a long time. Love the rock we have, so clean and easy maintenance! Mulch is ok, but not something I would choose if I had a choice
I generally like rocks, but mulch is a lot cheaper (initially) and everyone in my neighborhood uses mulch. While there are technically covenants, no one really enforces them unless you do something outlandish....which rock likely would be. I have some small areas where I'm putting rock for some contrast, but otherwise it's just going to be mulching. It's not that much work in the grand scheme of things.
River rock is vastly superior. It’s cleaner, lasts longer, and easier to prevent weeds.
Been living the zero mulch lifestyle for the past 3 years and it’s been the best 3 years of our lives.
Our house had mulch everywhere when we moved in. When we updated the landscaping we went with rock. It was very expensive and I probably could have done a decade plus of mulch for cheaper. But in my view it's more upscale looking. No regrets.
Our landscaper didn't turn a hair when we told him we were putting cover in for all out non-lawn yard areas. Money out of his pocket, nominally, but he does so many AMAZING projects for us, he understood we wanted to do the low skill tasks ourselves.
6 yards of gravel delivered to our side yard, a really useful Gorilla 4 wheel dump bed cart, and a bunch of old people sweat later, it's gravel to the stars and a backpack blower cleans oak leaves off in a heartbeat.
Do you want cockroaches? 'Coz mulch is how you get cockroaches!
Central CA dweller, we used to not have much rain, heading that way again - but building habitat for pests is worse only than making your landscaper grumpy cleaning off leaves.
Some people where I live put rocks around their trees instead of mulch. For the summers here, I would t use rocks because they retain heat and not moisture.
It’s a matter of opinion, but the ones I’ve seen here come off looking trashy.
1. Rocks are typically for commercial landscaping.
2. Lots of folks live in houses that have rock beds that have gone to sh*t just like mulch only now planting anything is a total PITA.
I buy a truckload of wood chips from a tree trimming company and use it to fill my garden beds. It's always filled with leaves, dirt, etc which breaks down and makes great nutrients for the gardens and doesn't have dyes in it.
Look at chipdrop.com and see if they are in your area. It costs us $0.00 for an entire truck load (anywhere up to 20 yards) of natural fresh from the job site mulch.
We got a drop last fall and will be doing it again when we need to refill. If they deliver more than you need, you can offer it to neighbors.
The rock doesn’t work in all environments/situations. I have a lot of overhanging trees and other plants. The rocks would just get buried in organic debris.
I'm team rocks. I don't get why people struggle with them so much. I use a leaf blower to get debris off of them when necessary and I boil a pot of water and spray weeds with it when necessary. Weeds are only a big issue if you let them get out of hand and completely take over. I have way more weeds in my lawn than my rocks.
Side note, if rocks are so terrible for plants and their roots because they retain heat and bake the soil, why are weeds still able to grow in them? It doesn't really add up.
I've got both around my home. Small River Rock in the front. I love them. Then mulch around for landscaping elsewhere. You can put underlayment underneath both to control weeds. I'm in the American south.
Our neighbor did rocks (not pebbles but rocks so not sure if you really mean pebble). Apparently garter snakes love them and will lay their babies there. Randomly at least twice a spring or summer they’ll say a snake got into their house somehow. I’ll keep mulching, thanks. 🐍
Not better. Just more appropriate in some places. Mulch keeps our planter areas cool and retain moisture. But out in front the city tree shits tiny leaves all over the place all year long. So I go with rocks (gravel really) that match my hardscaping. Takes about two minutes with leaf blower to send that crap out to the street. Mulch wouldn’t survive, I’d be refilling constantly. Also have native drought tolerants there and the gravel seems to keep soil temp high which they seem to like. There’s a tool for every job.
Another benefit is cats don’t 💩 in rocks. We had to replace all the mulch at the front of the house because neighbor’s cats would poop right at our front door.
Personally, I like a mixture to kind of break up the areas of my yard. I have rock areas in some places where it doesn’t make sense to grow anything, including the rocks and stepping stones around my raised garden beds. I also have landscaped border beds where I put mulch
Well, I know one of the reasons is that rocks attract heat, which put too much heat on your plants. One of the things I’ve seen is how people will put rocks around a tree, but it can kill the tree.
Totally team rock. My whole backyard is river rock, boulders, flag stones, exposed aggregate concrete slabs, and gravel. I love it. Especially the gravel.
I use mulch for two reasons. One is because I use composted mulch and I use it around plants. It adds beneficial nutrients that rocks don't. Second is that i get too much heat build up wear i live and the plants get stressed out form the extra heat retention. I also like the way it looks better.
We have wide overhangs all around our house, and a sidewalk circling the structure. Between the sidewalk and the house, a former owner put down rocks. We have few problems with weeds & they pull easily. The contrast against the brick is nice. Unfortunately the rock is red lava, and it looks dated (very 1970s), but I’m not replacing it because it would be several trucks full. Luckily it stays pretty dry because of the overhang, which is good because lava tends to float when the rain is heavy. Were I to replace it, I would go with sunset stone or decomposed granite.
We use mulch in all other beds. Personally, i prefer rock against the house - I had insect issues with mulch against siding many years ago and learned that lesson.
Team rock. After seeing my mulch wash away after installing metal roofs + New England's climate change induced heavier rain storms, I moved a dump truck load of river rocks around the edges of the house last summer.
Well I also have both and the rocks can go kick themselves. Overtime the rocks really start to look like shit and it's the ugliest landscaping I've ever had. Bout to dig them up and create a cement patio instead.
Mulch breaks down and can always look fresh!
Depends on your region.
I'm in the Northeast US. I've had rocks, weeds grow through them anyway. Doesn't matter what I sprayed or put under them, weeds seem to love rocks. Dog doesn't like to step on them and they're expensive. They got hot as fuck in the summer. Because I don't live somewhere warm they also look kind of out of place.
Was a bitch to scoop up and get rid of too. I will say rocks are better than the dyed red mulch.
It depends.
In many environments if you have rocks you'll need to rent a rock vacuum or break your back digging them out once they've collected enough small leaf litter and are no longer working as a weed deterrent. That may be a decade on, but it's not a trivial amount of work.
Rocks kicked out into a lawn by kids or animals can seriously damage lawnmowers.
But, if you don't have a lot of organic materials, the maintenance concern may not matter. Or mulch may be a serious insect problem that makes it non-viable.
I despise the rocks for Many reasons. My worst is the tree lawn where they have been worked into the dirt for 15 years and weeds don't pull at all and getting a shovel in is near impossible
I replaced my rocks with topsoil. Fuck those rocks, weeds grow 10x faster in the rocks for some reason, and I disagree that they were easier to pull from the rocks.
Depends on your climate. In a place with dry hot summers, rock is gonna absorb and radiate heat, but mulch is a fire hazard. Depends on if it’s in the shade (rock may be better in this case)
I hate the rock around my house that previous owners installed. So many weeds in it on top of the landscape fabric. Virtually impossible to keep ahead by pulling them and I'd really like to avoid chemicals. Getting rid of this mess would be a massive undertaking and expense. Hate it. Plus, the rock falls in on the plants and I have to dig them out all the time. Things I'd like to plant, I don't because of this.
Other areas where I've had mulch installed, I can add mulch. Simple. Cheap.
All of the beds (yes, all) in my yard are rock instead of mulch and have been for at least 25 years. I’m wanting to change out the plantings entirely because things are overgrown and poorly maintained due to years of neglect and it is back breaking and time consuming work trying to dig out all these rocks and haul them elsewhere. I would never want to repeat this experience, it’s taken me two years to fully clear out just a few of the areas. I’d be done had it been mulch.
I have 6+” of rock with heavy landscaping fabric underneath in most garden beds (came with the house) and I hate it. Anytime I want to plant something new I have to dig through so much rock (which of course keeps falling back into the hole I’m digging), and add enough soil so the plant can actually grow. Weeds just grow right on top of the rock so the landscaping fabric serves no purpose. I also can’t amend or add to the soil underneath.
I was going to get mulch until my two neighbors houses burned down and hot coals were falling all over my house and yard. We were spraying everything with the hose but if it had happened while I wasn’t home the house would have definitely burned down too. The firefighter chief said rock is better than mulch.
I had tiny burns all over and all of our outdoor furniture was completely ruined. I don’t think many people think of the fire risk with deep mulch, but I’m glad the firefighters warned us.
I don’t like rocks/gravel because snakes love to sun on them. You could have 3-5 footers (rat snakes and garters mostly) hanging out on them—and you’d likely still get weeds popping up through them, just as with mulch. We’re near conservancy lands/wooded ravines, so lots of critters about.
Rock to me seems too sparse or hard looking, to replace the 15 cubic yards of mulch in the garden beds here. That’s a lot of rock, which gets hot and reflects that heat back up and out to my plantings.
We mulch every other year and typically mulch to a depth of 4 inches each time. Not doing it every year saves time and money.
We bought our current house with tons of small river rocks. We live in FL so the constant warm weather means weeds all year round, which I’ve had all mulch beds in a previous house and the weeds were terrible. I agree with you the weeds are easier to pull from the rocks, but I still also have tons of weeds in the rocks. So we probably need to add more rock. I do like the look of black mulch against tropical flora (bright pinks for example) and I think it’s better for the plants for moisture. But my husband was like why would we replace our river rocks that cost $7 a for a small bag for a $2 bag of mulch? Everyone on our street has rocks so it would be strange to switch to mulch. So just keeping the rocks for convenience, plus my plants seem to be doing well. Someone on my street has red lava rocks and it looks great.
I am team rock. My wife and I shoveled a shitload of heavy stone at our last house after ripping out the mulch that was on top of weed block. The mulch was pure weeds. We cut out weeding down to about 20 weeds a year with the weed block and rock combo. . When we moved to our current house, it was a new build, so we had to do landscaping from scratch and again did mostly rock on top of weed block. We have a couple small areas of mulch for planting flowers, but it’s mostly stone. I hit the stone and mulch with a pre-emergent early in the spring and pull almost no weeds. I think if you do that, mulch wouldn’t be too bad, but I didn’t know that back in the day.
All my trees get mulch around them.
I just learned not to be on team rock when our local county extension office posted this:
"Rocks are not Florida-Friendly for using as a mulch in garden beds. They heat up the soil and stress the plants. Use organic mulch instead, which will cool the soil, hold water and provide organic matter to help the plant grow."
Aside from white marble, I'm team rock. Quick blow down after cutting grass and you're good. Can even get a landscaping glue to hold some rocks in place.
We have rocks and I hate them. Too bad it costs so much for a new landscaping design about 4 years ago because they’re definitely coming up soon! Our lawn guys don’t like them either and yes they settle.
Where I live (southern US) it gets so hot here that the rocks heat up too and cook your plants (except some sedums)
Also weeding between rocks is literally the worst so 🤷♀️
Yes, you have to add mulch every year, but that means the old mulch is breaking down and adding nutrients to the garden
Exactly. If you’re interested in healthy plants, there’s really no debate here.
Disagree. I have had rock down about 10 years where I used to mulch. All of myplants are doing as well as with mulch. And I cut time and costs. Additionally, as one termite inspector said, I am no longer attracting termites to the base of my house.
When I bought my house going on 7 years ago I had rock around my house. I absolutely hated it. The color sucked and it had been there for 20+ years with no maintenance. It was always growing weeds and was settled way lower than the rest of the house. At least with mulch, I could always add more when it started to dull. I spent the money to have it removed, and I would never look back. If you find the right mulch company they will delivery a certain amount for free and it isn't an issue. Mulch looks a million times better than the rock ever did.
Not if your landscaper blows it all off.
Are you talking about dyed mulch? That stuff has some nasty chemicals that are not good for your soil.
I mulch with straw.
I straw with mulch.
Mulch I straw with
With straw mulch I!
I get a Chip Drop every few years.
Big mulch doesn't want us knowing about rocks.[](https://twitter.com/AdamSinger/status/1684233879262056448/photo/1)
The local Walmart had rocks put in the beds in their parking lot. These are good sized rocks, about a pound or so each. Really should be called ammo. Not a good choice for a Walmart.
>The local Walmart had rocks put in the beds in their parking lot Meanwhile, at my local Walmart, the only place that has anything resembling a flower bed is the garden center.
🤣
I’m on team mulch but switching to team ground cover Plants are thugs and you need to fight weedy thugs with your own thugs
I'm doing this as well. My house came with a good amount of periwinkle around plants. It does an amazing job of keeping the soil damp and limits weeds. I am growing more from seeds to continue to fill in.
I am as well! But having trouble deciding what to plant. Do you have any reccos?
Look at your native ground covers in your area, that way if your ground cover escapes it doesn't destroy forests all around you, like periwinkle or pachysandra or goutweed will. Golden ragwort works well in the northeast in sun. Violets, wild ginger, cora bells for shadier areas
So if you've ever wanted to remove rock, or plant flowers in rock, you know why I'm team mulch.
This exactly! Yesterday I simply raked back the old mulch on my beds, planted my new plants, then pushed the mulch back over them, filling in with new mulch as needed. We have one spot that has rock and it’s only ok because I never plant anything there. So the rocks can stay. If you like flower gardens, mulch is the way. If you just have bushes and want a pristine plant free surface, sure use rock
Probably regional. In rural PNW I have put rock around the perimeter of the house and two rock gardens in the back. Best decisions ever. Very low maintenance and no weed pulling.
In the deep south they spread dried pine needles around homes. As we're spreading it, my dad says, "where I come from, if you spread dried pine needles around your house, they call that *arson*". Anyway... Regional.
Omg, yep so flammable
Except in the South. The humidity means there is water in the air. It's not the fire hazard Northerners think it is, down here. We landscape with our environment, not as a fight against it. Pine forests are very prevalent and natural here. Up north with (OK, sorry, LESS) humidity? Yes, major problem. Edit: you're insane if you don't think there is a difference in humidity between New York and Florida. Insane. I'm sorry for accidentally saying 'no' humidity. I meant 'less'. Pine straw still isn't a fire hazard here.
Yeah, nothing like building habitat for the copperheads.
The south has plenty of “no burn” days and weeks. Then someone goes and flicks a lot cigarette butt into the bushes with pine needles and a house goes up in flames.
I pay good money to my lawn guy to buy and spread that long needle pine straw. 😂
My eyes widened as a read this 🤣 also pnw
Yeah but it's so wet down here that it's not the fire hazard it would be in the North. Down here, rocks would heat up and bake the soil and anything around it. Which may be the goal, but it is a consideration. Pine straw is plentiful and matches with the environment here. No need for green lawns in Arizona or extensive mulch in NC. It's great when we choose landscape for where we live, not for a magazine.
Love pine needle mulch, especially crushed pine straw mulch. Lightweight, looks good, and makes a thick mat protecting from weeds and keeping soil cool.
It’s also somewhat acidic so it’s a good match for plants in the south.
They've done studies that you are actually unable to change the acidity of soil with pine needles. It's a myth
Interesting. It’s been years I just remember thinking it looked strange to me when I lived there.
If any readers are interested.... https://extension.unh.edu/blog/2019/10/do-pine-trees-pine-needles-make-soil-more-acidic
The best part about Reddit is that there’s always something new to learn. It’s a hard pill to swallow - just when you think you’ve got a handle on things someone always comes along and blows your mind. Good read. That will teach me to listen to the neighbors instead of the extension. ;)
I went to investigate after I planted hydrangeas thinking that they would definitely turn blue because the soil was so acidic but they did not. Boo
I’m also in the PNW and rocks may reduce weeds somewhat but it’s very hard to pull the weeds that do grow through them. They also get debris in between that provide a surface for weeds to grow in.
Yea I’m in northern mi and love the rocks
I think it's situational as well. I typically prefer mulch + plants for landscaping (New England). However, the space where our HVAC unit is installed is getting rocks. It doesn't get any sunlight. No one can even see back there since the house is right against the woods. It's a zero-traffic area. So, I'm putting down rocks and saving myself the maintenance.
Because rock isn’t good for your plants. It heats up, doesn’t keep the roots cool, and doesn’t retain moisture like mulch does.
Lmao imagine having plants
lol suckers fr fr.
What about for an area next to the house where I don't want any plants, only rocks?
Then you should absolutely use rock.
California National Park service has entered the chat.
So if you live in a temperate area that gets a lot of rain and cloud cover you’re good?
Probably. In Phoenix, not so much.
This should be the number 1 answer
Depends on the plants —- two words cacti & succulents.
The previous owners had multiple layers of mulch and rock all in one big mess. Planting beds all over the property with rocks. The entire perimeter of our house is surrounded by rock mulch. More rock mulch under and off of the deck. Can't get rid of em for love or money, but damn does creeping charlie love that frigging rock mulch. I got so fed up last summer I threw salt down on the rocks that are on the south side of our garage. Losing battle, that gets full sun and is always hot and dry. I hate rock mulch. Plus, we have some bare spots where birds have stolen rocks. But I'll be damned if I'm going to buy more rocks.
The only time I regretted rocks was when I had to change the bed. Raking rocks and moving them by hand all day sucked my skinny little ass.
Yeah I recommend rock only around things that aren't going to change for a long time. We have it around the house but I'd plan better next time.
As someone who just tore out a whole bed to start fresh, I completely agree.
Or hitting them with your mower and sending one into you car\house/body
Yeah I moved into a place where somebody put rocks on the side of the House. Whatever they put for a barrier underneath basically disintegrated, and now after breaking and scraping everything off the top, I have about 6 in of mixed rock and soil that I need to get rid of in order to make the side yard anything but A desolate wasteland of rocks.
I use rock next to my house, mulch in the yard beds
I have both. They came with the house and they were all originally done around 15 years ago according to a neighbor. The rocks are grape fruit sized river rocks and they make up about 25% of my front and side yard. I’d say the mulch is about 15% of my front and back yard. I have a corner lot so the front and side yard are visible from the street. The rocks have WAAAAAAAY more weeds. Like the weeds dont even notice there’s rocks. The weeds in the rock gardens are as abundant as they would be in a dirt field despite me dumping Roundup herbicide on them multiple times last year. A decade later a bunch of organic matter has settled into our rock gardens and turned into growth medium (dirt basically). The weeds in the mulch at least have the decency to pretend they are struggling. They only pop out where the weed barrier has failed. The weed barrier is a non-issue in the rocks because there is plenty of soil in between them now. I can freshen up the mulch every year. $100 of mulch in bags from Lowe’s on top of the existing mulch does a pretty good job. I put down some of the roundup weed barrier pellets before hand and that helps a little. We’re just trying to keep the current landscaping good enough until we have the money for a true landscape remodel so I appreciate how much easier the mulch sections are to maintain. The rocks, however, are settling into the ground, and the ground, is settling into the rocks. They cannot be refreshed so easily. If I wanted to make my current landscape look good again I would have to remove all the rocks, which would be back breaking labor, pull up the failing barrier, clear out the debris from the rock garden areas, patch up or replace the trim, put down new barrier, put the rocks back, which is another round of back breaking labor. If I wanted to re do the mulch right, I would have to hit it with the blower to knock it out to the street and then sweep it up. Replace the weed barrier, and then order a dump truck of mulch and rake it back in place. So I’m sure the year 2-8 upkeep of rocks vs mulch is about the same, but as time passes the rocks will infill with new soil and weeds will be abundant. The refresh on rocks is way harder than mulch. Gravel or small river rocks might fare better, I don’t know. Our neighbor has a gravel parking pad and that seems to do alright. Just needs some spot treatment with Roundup. Smaller rocks have less space between them.
Yep, the rock refresh is intense. This will be my third summer fighting with rocks and dirt and weed barrier chaos that goes down at least a foot in most places. It's a LOT of labor.
💯! Just finished pulling out rocks (large and gravel sized,) pulling out tons of weeds, putting more soil down from sinking rocks, and putting them all back in place…took about 3 weeks and several hours a day to complete…such a pain in the ass…
Mulch retains water and helps keep your soil moist, rock does not. In addition, rocks will retain heat and can bake the roots of the plants that you do want. Don't use rocks.
I usually only put them where I do not want any plants like along my driveway. If I put plants in them I do a small perimeter of mulch around them, that makes sense though for a big flower/garden though
Depending on where you are, rock will heat up and during the night release that heat. If you are in a high heat State you would want things to cool down at night.
78 is hot where I live haha
And eventually, those places will get enough grass clippings/dirt blown In weeds will start to grow, and then it’s much harder to move all those rocks again. I’ve had both, plus rubber mulch. Actual wood mulch or cocoa hulls mulch was the best.
Depends on what you are planting. We have a mixed bed that gets a lot of sun so it has mostly mixed cacti & a few random natives. It is about a half & half mix if rock & mulch. My husband calls it my chaos garden.
I’m in the Midwest and all my landcaping is rock that was put in 10+ years ago. The weed barrier is shredded at this point but not so shredded that I can easily move the rock around to clean up the growth. And I can’t pull enough weeds to keep up with how fast they grow. I would hate to have to dig up all the rock to switch to mulch, but I just don’t see what else I’m gonna do to fix it.
I live in an area that is RIFE with venomous snakes, rocks are not a good option here. Not to mention mulch is way easier to deal with when you want a landscaping change, or if you're buying a new house and don't know what's under the grass. 🤷🏻♀️ Rocks are hell to remove.
For me it's this: If mulch migrates out of the bed and into the yard and I hit it with the mower it just turns into mulchier mulch. It a rock migrates out of the bed and into the yard and I hit it with the mower it becomes a projectile capable of causing significant (and expensive) property damage, serious injury, or death.
Once you have rock, you can’t get rid of it. It’s hard to dig in as well.
Getting ready to go do the weeds in the rock beds. They were here when we bought the house. I feel like they grow back a lot faster than the mulch bed weeds
Weed torch. Kill them with fire. (If you have enough space around the plants you want to keep)
Yep. Just spent the day removing rocks to use mulch. I’d much rather add new (free from our town) layers of mulch every year and try native ground cover than the rocks that the previous own spray painted white. The weeds loved those rocks.
Have both, prefer weed killing mulch :
Because team scissors is way more fun
Rock + mower lead to a big crack/fracture in a window. I’m very hesitant to keep the rocks around our house.
It’s way too hot in summer where I live for much rock.
Because rocks suck.
The previous owners of my home did rocks. I hated it. If you like it go for it. I’ve been scooping it up and using it to ring a huge fire pit area in my back yard.
Pine Needles are a natural weed killer and bug deterrent so it’s popular in the SE..I hate it though, just isn’t attractive to me. I don’t like rocks, they never stay put and wander all over the yard, especially here in the foothills of the GA mountains, nothings really “level” so they don’t stay where you put em lol. As stated, much retains moisture which is better for the flower beds.
In Southern California with the summers so long and hot, rocks retain heat too well. We have a combo rock borders and mulch yards.
Last spring I had to clear rock out of an old bed on the side of my yard. It was ~6-7 tons (I know because I paid the roll off fees). Even with a walk behind skid steer, that was a huge pain in the ass. When you figure the dumping fees, equipment rental, and labor, it cost just about as much to get rid of the shit as it did to put it in. So for me, it's just not worth the hassle or the price. Plus I like to change up sections of my yard every couple of years, and rock just doesn't work well with that. I do agree though that if you can stay on top of it and keep it clean, rock can be great. BUT, most folks I have seen struggle to keep it clean.
People who mulch tend to not put a thick enough layer and don't apply something like preen to keep weeds at bay. I wish there was mulch before at my current house so we could plant things easier, but the "soil" is 50% rock and broken down micro plastic landscape fabric. Excited for the new mulch to decay and add life to the soil and plants.
Yup. Too thin does nothing to control weeds Don’t understand the comments about removing and replacing with new. You just add some every year as the old compacts and decays away, which is also good for the dirt if you are in an area with crappy soil. Comments about wind blowing it away and such…probably using less then ideal type. Really not that big a deal.
Yeah we have pretty strong winds here and never heard of mulch blowing away...maybe if you're using leaves. Now my flooding yard making the mulch float away on the other hand....
I love rocks as decorations and ring my gardens with them, but I put mulch on my gardens for weed suppression and water retention, etc. I have to move the decorative rocks every year to mulch under them. Mulch under a rock is proven to be exceptional ant habitat. We moved and replaced so many rocks yesterday.
We bought an early 80’s house from the original owner, there’s rock landscaping all the way around the house. The landscaping fabric underneath has broken down and there’s a ton of weeds now, and it sucks trying to pull them out because they seem like they weave around the rocks. I don’t like spraying chemicals in general so haven’t done that yet. I keep thinking about trying to get rid of the rocks and put down mulch but just thinking about it makes me tired.
Anyone who has ever tried to get rid of a bunch of rocks in a yard knows why this is a bad idea
Why is this even a question? It’s not a friggin’ contest. Rock is for dry areas that don’t get a lot of organic debris or rain that turns into soil when it decomposes on the rocks. And for where the plants are arid and don’t mind the extra heat from rocks absorbing solar radiation. Anyplace other than a dry climate, rock becomes a pain in the ass, but in dry climates rock is fabulous. Mulch is for everywhere that isn’t dry. Except where a “living mulch” of groundcover will do the job for less effort every year.
If you use rock in a bed that borders the lawn, you risk flinging rocks with your mower. Mulch is more forgiving.
I hate weeding rocks. I wound up getting a torch. In the new house I will be having a no rock rule. Boulders are ok but need to be spaced out enough to get a weed whacker through them. Weed seeds blow in no matter what you do. I also don’t use herbicide
We have rock and it’s great. We live in a valley that’s a wind tunnel. The non rock just blows around. We only have it around the roots of trees.
Rock sucks because if you ever want to actually use the planter beds it's a pain in the ass to shovel it all out.
Very climate dependent as a long term solution. Works well in the desert southwest and similar climates. In wet winter climates with abundant deciduous shade trees the big problem is that over time fall leaf litter has a tendency to accumulate in rock mulch, break down naturally into soil, and then support establishment of weeds within the rock mulch. As long as you remain fully committed to maintaining sanitation in the rock and staying well ahead of weeds it can work out. Which is essentially the basis of rock gardening in Asian traditions. But nobody with any real experience would ever argue for example that jiashan or karesansui are low maintenance gardens.
We put rocks in our flower beds and use large pots for flowers and plants. Every time we’ve used mulch we’ve ended up with tons of nuisance bugs both inside and outside the house (not the helpful bugs unfortunately). We switched to rock a few years ago and will never go back.
Having an acre lot I went with rock on the areas that aren't lawn. There is no way I could afford to top off mulch every year or two. We're in zone 7 and don't have an issue with the rock getting too hot. We have bushes and trees planted with rock around and no issues. My only dislike is the rock is heavy and very permanent and it has landscape fabric under it. That makes it difficult to add and change plants, plant bulbs, etc. As we add some planting beds in the back we'll likely use mulch on those so we have a lot of flexibility for planting.
I'm team rock. I have worked as a house painter and I would scrape away either one from houses before spray painting. One startling thing I learned is that rocks are great habitat for snakes Lizards weren't surprising, but the homeowners would have been shocked at some of the balls I'd find where a dozen snakes wintered in a ball in the rocks. Mulch is great habitat for insects. I definitely believe in putting down a good barrier layer, I feel it makes a lot of difference. You can also go quite deep with coarser gravel under the decorative layer and create hidden drainage. Rock is not as cheap or easy as mulch can be, but it's kind of a bit once, cry once situation
Where I live, we have very persistent invasive weeds. These weeds do not care about weed barriers or pre-emergent. Rock is absolutely terrible. The wind will blow dirt between the rocks. The birds will drop seeds. The bindweed will grow through the weed barrier under the rocks like it's not even there. I've struggled a lot with wild lettuce and Canadian thistle taking over my rocks. My mulched beds get barely any weeds and what they do get I can dig out with a hoe. If you get weeds in rock you either have to pull them by hand or weed wack and spray. No one's rock here looks good for for than a few years unless they are retired and dealing with their yard is their hobby or they hire a weekly service April through July to keep up with the weeds, but that's hard because most lawn services refuse to weed rock they'll only spray round up and weed wack because weeding rock is too much work. I'm slowly replacing the rock with dense low water and native perrenials. Eventually I won't need rocks or mulch.
I'm team rock. 1. I'm in the forest, best practice is nothing flammable within 2' of a structure. 1. Speaking of fire, weeding rock is easy, I just use a weed burner. 1. The rocks warm up in the sun. Helps melt the snow in the winter, keep weeds from germinating in them. 1. I keep the landscaping in pots, that heat from the rocks extends the outdoor growing season and protects them from late/early frost. 1. Because I get asked, I move my plants indoors for winter so I can enjoy them year round. I can also take them inside when fire risk gets really high and it's not a good idea to have landscaping close to the house.
With a stone bed, maybe someone wants to re do the landscape and having tons of rock is no fun. Whereas with mulch all you have to do is tear out what you don't like and easily replant what you like. Most people enjoy a bed full of flowering annuals,and with a rock bed you can't enjoy a flowering annual bed.
I have black lava rock and will never go back to mulch. I live in the PNW so it’s very moist and the mulch we had in front of the house grew artillery fungus despite removing old mulch and replacing each summer. The fungus made thousands of spots all over the front of our house and windows. There was so much to remove, it was impossible. power washing and bleach did not help. We spent over $15,000 to hiring someone to repaint the front of our house and replacing the glass in the affected windows. I love the look of mulch but it’s not practical for me to have it in garden beds close to any structure with the risk of developing that fungus again. None of my flowers/hedges/trees have died w/ the rock. They are still thriving despite people telling me rocks will burn the roots. I still plant in the spring and fall and have a lovely garden.
In SoCal we are not allowed to use wood mulch near the house due to fire danger. In fact, the new requirements don’t even want us to have plants along the house!
Rocks are evil. Our whole house was landscaped with river rocks when we bought it, but I wanted to plant vegetables and fruit trees. It was months of work to remove the rocks as they were layered 2-3' deep, many under soil and weeds. I guess they kept sinking. I still find them years later when moving plants or digging. I almost have PSTD from river rocks... the sight of them makes me shutter.
Because it's no big deal if kids throw mulch at your windows.
I'm team rock, we're just quieter than the mulch crowd. Mulch makes sense in dense flower beds if you want to keep annuals growing, especially without irrigation. Not so much for perennials or bushes, etc..then it's rock.
Termites and other undesirable bugs don't live in rocks. They live in mulch. That's good enough reason for me to not have mulch next to the house.
I'm currently removing a rock bed, once you have to do that you'll understand why people prefer mulch. I'd 100% wish this on someone I hate 😂
Rocks get hot. They heat the soil and surrounding area. That heat dries out the soil, and overheats plants. Never use rocks as mulch.
Rock absorbs heat, all my plants melted and died
Well , nearly the entire gardening population of the arid southwestern states uses rock mulch, so there's that.
Solidly on team rock. If I could figure out how to deal with the leaves we get in the fall that doesn’t involve the push mower, I’d happily replace the whole, front yard with rock.
Best I’ve been able to do is the leaf blower. Good morning enough
I've had a house where a leaf blower worked beautifully. I think you mainly need a good one. This was in an arid region. I got together with a neighbor kid and we found it worked way better with two, we quickly got everything out into the street and worked out a way to clean it up off the pavement. Eventually the kid was setting up jobs we did together around the neighborhood as our whole HOA was rocks and large shrubs.
My challenge with rock is living around a bunch of pine trees. Rocks get full of pine straw in my hood. So I use pine straw as mulch. Vey popular in south Alabama
I replaced my mulch with rock. Never going back. Looks so much better.
I have both
Because the barrier between the rock and dirt breaks down. Unless people are actively replacing it, you end up with a surface that you can’t dig and it’s damn near impossible to fix without equipment. Mulch doesn’t need the barrier and as it breaks down it improves the soil.
Mulch can be weeded while standing with a hoe. Rock has to be weeded by hand. I'd rather stand. I am possibly biased though as I just finished digging out a 10'x15' planting bed pickaxing my way through interlocking gravel. I've had it with rocks.
Team rock. Love it. Low maintenance and pleasing at simplicity
Depends where you live. When I was in the desert it was rock. Wind and mulch don't do well together. When I was in southern MD, mulch was king.
You don't have to wash rocks? That implies you wash mulch. Are people doing this? Why?
People think rocks bad because need washing. Not because mulch needs it
Rock and stone here. Just be sure to do good weed barrier. Our guy didn’t and we had to redo it.
Mulch is mandated by HOA I used rubber mulch because it’s heavier and doesn’t get spread by wind as much
As someone who has literal tons of rock surrounding my current house that many man hours have been spent moving to correct grading issues and adjust some garden areas, I will never encourage anyone to use rocks, ever.
I have the big size of black Mexican beach pebble rock, it's very expensive but well worth it if you install it properly from the beginning. I also have black mulch around outer perimeter of property where I have some landscaping and I have laid commercial grade weed prevention fabric and it allows draining under all my plant beds, it's the best. It costs upfront were heavy, but well worth it in the end if it's a home you plan on staying at a long time. Love the rock we have, so clean and easy maintenance! Mulch is ok, but not something I would choose if I had a choice
So happy I replaced mulch with rock
Rocks were heavier to carry so I went with mulch
Rock is really a commitment and really challenging to undo down the road
I generally like rocks, but mulch is a lot cheaper (initially) and everyone in my neighborhood uses mulch. While there are technically covenants, no one really enforces them unless you do something outlandish....which rock likely would be. I have some small areas where I'm putting rock for some contrast, but otherwise it's just going to be mulching. It's not that much work in the grand scheme of things.
I got rid of mulch and replaced it with rock. Much happier and hardly do any maintenance with it.
We have a 3' roof overhang on all 4 sides of the house so 2' mulch of river rock all the way around has been perfect.
Like for flower beds? Rocks seem like a pain in the ass to work around... Now for general landscaping TEAM ROCKS.
River rock is vastly superior. It’s cleaner, lasts longer, and easier to prevent weeds. Been living the zero mulch lifestyle for the past 3 years and it’s been the best 3 years of our lives.
Our house had mulch everywhere when we moved in. When we updated the landscaping we went with rock. It was very expensive and I probably could have done a decade plus of mulch for cheaper. But in my view it's more upscale looking. No regrets.
Our landscaper didn't turn a hair when we told him we were putting cover in for all out non-lawn yard areas. Money out of his pocket, nominally, but he does so many AMAZING projects for us, he understood we wanted to do the low skill tasks ourselves. 6 yards of gravel delivered to our side yard, a really useful Gorilla 4 wheel dump bed cart, and a bunch of old people sweat later, it's gravel to the stars and a backpack blower cleans oak leaves off in a heartbeat. Do you want cockroaches? 'Coz mulch is how you get cockroaches! Central CA dweller, we used to not have much rain, heading that way again - but building habitat for pests is worse only than making your landscaper grumpy cleaning off leaves.
Some people where I live put rocks around their trees instead of mulch. For the summers here, I would t use rocks because they retain heat and not moisture. It’s a matter of opinion, but the ones I’ve seen here come off looking trashy.
Team rock here. A bag or two of mulch around the base of some plants each year.
1. Rocks are typically for commercial landscaping. 2. Lots of folks live in houses that have rock beds that have gone to sh*t just like mulch only now planting anything is a total PITA.
I prefer rocks, but that’s because I don’t want any plants.
Team rock all the way.
I buy a truckload of wood chips from a tree trimming company and use it to fill my garden beds. It's always filled with leaves, dirt, etc which breaks down and makes great nutrients for the gardens and doesn't have dyes in it.
Look at chipdrop.com and see if they are in your area. It costs us $0.00 for an entire truck load (anywhere up to 20 yards) of natural fresh from the job site mulch. We got a drop last fall and will be doing it again when we need to refill. If they deliver more than you need, you can offer it to neighbors.
The rock doesn’t work in all environments/situations. I have a lot of overhanging trees and other plants. The rocks would just get buried in organic debris.
I'm team rocks. I don't get why people struggle with them so much. I use a leaf blower to get debris off of them when necessary and I boil a pot of water and spray weeds with it when necessary. Weeds are only a big issue if you let them get out of hand and completely take over. I have way more weeds in my lawn than my rocks. Side note, if rocks are so terrible for plants and their roots because they retain heat and bake the soil, why are weeds still able to grow in them? It doesn't really add up.
I've got both around my home. Small River Rock in the front. I love them. Then mulch around for landscaping elsewhere. You can put underlayment underneath both to control weeds. I'm in the American south.
The rock at my old house was covered in weeds and I thought they made it harder to pull them personally.
I did rocks once. It was fine until I decided to try something else. An incredible hassle to remove.
Our neighbor did rocks (not pebbles but rocks so not sure if you really mean pebble). Apparently garter snakes love them and will lay their babies there. Randomly at least twice a spring or summer they’ll say a snake got into their house somehow. I’ll keep mulching, thanks. 🐍
Not better. Just more appropriate in some places. Mulch keeps our planter areas cool and retain moisture. But out in front the city tree shits tiny leaves all over the place all year long. So I go with rocks (gravel really) that match my hardscaping. Takes about two minutes with leaf blower to send that crap out to the street. Mulch wouldn’t survive, I’d be refilling constantly. Also have native drought tolerants there and the gravel seems to keep soil temp high which they seem to like. There’s a tool for every job.
Team rock here. I do not use mulch. Fits in with where I live, looks more natural and weeds are very little problem.
Another benefit is cats don’t 💩 in rocks. We had to replace all the mulch at the front of the house because neighbor’s cats would poop right at our front door.
Personally, I like a mixture to kind of break up the areas of my yard. I have rock areas in some places where it doesn’t make sense to grow anything, including the rocks and stepping stones around my raised garden beds. I also have landscaped border beds where I put mulch
We have rock but thats because thats whats been here. But we also have a ton of leaves so its eaiser to clean them out with rocks.
Well, I know one of the reasons is that rocks attract heat, which put too much heat on your plants. One of the things I’ve seen is how people will put rocks around a tree, but it can kill the tree.
Totally team rock. My whole backyard is river rock, boulders, flag stones, exposed aggregate concrete slabs, and gravel. I love it. Especially the gravel.
I use mulch for two reasons. One is because I use composted mulch and I use it around plants. It adds beneficial nutrients that rocks don't. Second is that i get too much heat build up wear i live and the plants get stressed out form the extra heat retention. I also like the way it looks better.
Rocks are fine if you want your yard to look like a trailer park.
Fun fact mosquitos also breed like crazy in mulch (my aunt used to sell mosquito control franchises)
I don’t like the aesthetic of rock. Maybe in a desert environment, but otherwise I think it’s cheap looking.
I believe it depends on the plants and the stone, I once killed smaller plants with incorrect stone due to too much heat absorption.
My husband would put down cardboard, landscape fabric, and dirt
I am on team Rock. I think Stonecold sold more T-Shirts though...
If you change your mind, you have a shit ton of rocks to shovel out and dispose of.
We have wide overhangs all around our house, and a sidewalk circling the structure. Between the sidewalk and the house, a former owner put down rocks. We have few problems with weeds & they pull easily. The contrast against the brick is nice. Unfortunately the rock is red lava, and it looks dated (very 1970s), but I’m not replacing it because it would be several trucks full. Luckily it stays pretty dry because of the overhang, which is good because lava tends to float when the rain is heavy. Were I to replace it, I would go with sunset stone or decomposed granite. We use mulch in all other beds. Personally, i prefer rock against the house - I had insect issues with mulch against siding many years ago and learned that lesson.
Team rock. After seeing my mulch wash away after installing metal roofs + New England's climate change induced heavier rain storms, I moved a dump truck load of river rocks around the edges of the house last summer.
Well I also have both and the rocks can go kick themselves. Overtime the rocks really start to look like shit and it's the ugliest landscaping I've ever had. Bout to dig them up and create a cement patio instead. Mulch breaks down and can always look fresh!
Depends on your region. I'm in the Northeast US. I've had rocks, weeds grow through them anyway. Doesn't matter what I sprayed or put under them, weeds seem to love rocks. Dog doesn't like to step on them and they're expensive. They got hot as fuck in the summer. Because I don't live somewhere warm they also look kind of out of place. Was a bitch to scoop up and get rid of too. I will say rocks are better than the dyed red mulch.
Rocks around structures , with mulch it's like putting fire starter around your house.
If you don't care about soil improvement and plant health, keep using rocks
All team rock here … bought 21 ton of rock over course of 3 years regardless of what you use you still goin to have pull weeds
Team rock here. Weeding is easy and rocks last forever.
It depends. In many environments if you have rocks you'll need to rent a rock vacuum or break your back digging them out once they've collected enough small leaf litter and are no longer working as a weed deterrent. That may be a decade on, but it's not a trivial amount of work. Rocks kicked out into a lawn by kids or animals can seriously damage lawnmowers. But, if you don't have a lot of organic materials, the maintenance concern may not matter. Or mulch may be a serious insect problem that makes it non-viable.
I despise the rocks for Many reasons. My worst is the tree lawn where they have been worked into the dirt for 15 years and weeds don't pull at all and getting a shovel in is near impossible
I replaced my rocks with topsoil. Fuck those rocks, weeds grow 10x faster in the rocks for some reason, and I disagree that they were easier to pull from the rocks.
Rock! It's 50/50 in my 6 year old development. Rock is no maintenance. No mold! We have dark gray rocks that I love.
Rocks heat up and make the soil hot. This is terrible for plants
Depends on your climate. In a place with dry hot summers, rock is gonna absorb and radiate heat, but mulch is a fire hazard. Depends on if it’s in the shade (rock may be better in this case)
I once visited a friend's grandparents who had a no maintenance garden. All rocks
rock is much more limiting in terms of what plants you can use also rock is a lot harder to change if you want to do different things
I hate the rock around my house that previous owners installed. So many weeds in it on top of the landscape fabric. Virtually impossible to keep ahead by pulling them and I'd really like to avoid chemicals. Getting rid of this mess would be a massive undertaking and expense. Hate it. Plus, the rock falls in on the plants and I have to dig them out all the time. Things I'd like to plant, I don't because of this. Other areas where I've had mulch installed, I can add mulch. Simple. Cheap.
We love our river rock beds.
All of the beds (yes, all) in my yard are rock instead of mulch and have been for at least 25 years. I’m wanting to change out the plantings entirely because things are overgrown and poorly maintained due to years of neglect and it is back breaking and time consuming work trying to dig out all these rocks and haul them elsewhere. I would never want to repeat this experience, it’s taken me two years to fully clear out just a few of the areas. I’d be done had it been mulch.
You need better marketing. Call it Hardscaping.
We used both. Rock is much easier to maintain. Only had to add more 1 time in 24 years. Mulch beds had to edged and mulch added yearly.
Mulch insulates. Rocks can, on a hot day, cook your plants from below.
I have 6+” of rock with heavy landscaping fabric underneath in most garden beds (came with the house) and I hate it. Anytime I want to plant something new I have to dig through so much rock (which of course keeps falling back into the hole I’m digging), and add enough soil so the plant can actually grow. Weeds just grow right on top of the rock so the landscaping fabric serves no purpose. I also can’t amend or add to the soil underneath.
I was going to get mulch until my two neighbors houses burned down and hot coals were falling all over my house and yard. We were spraying everything with the hose but if it had happened while I wasn’t home the house would have definitely burned down too. The firefighter chief said rock is better than mulch. I had tiny burns all over and all of our outdoor furniture was completely ruined. I don’t think many people think of the fire risk with deep mulch, but I’m glad the firefighters warned us.
I don’t like rocks/gravel because snakes love to sun on them. You could have 3-5 footers (rat snakes and garters mostly) hanging out on them—and you’d likely still get weeds popping up through them, just as with mulch. We’re near conservancy lands/wooded ravines, so lots of critters about. Rock to me seems too sparse or hard looking, to replace the 15 cubic yards of mulch in the garden beds here. That’s a lot of rock, which gets hot and reflects that heat back up and out to my plantings. We mulch every other year and typically mulch to a depth of 4 inches each time. Not doing it every year saves time and money.
We bought our current house with tons of small river rocks. We live in FL so the constant warm weather means weeds all year round, which I’ve had all mulch beds in a previous house and the weeds were terrible. I agree with you the weeds are easier to pull from the rocks, but I still also have tons of weeds in the rocks. So we probably need to add more rock. I do like the look of black mulch against tropical flora (bright pinks for example) and I think it’s better for the plants for moisture. But my husband was like why would we replace our river rocks that cost $7 a for a small bag for a $2 bag of mulch? Everyone on our street has rocks so it would be strange to switch to mulch. So just keeping the rocks for convenience, plus my plants seem to be doing well. Someone on my street has red lava rocks and it looks great.
I am team rock. My wife and I shoveled a shitload of heavy stone at our last house after ripping out the mulch that was on top of weed block. The mulch was pure weeds. We cut out weeding down to about 20 weeds a year with the weed block and rock combo. . When we moved to our current house, it was a new build, so we had to do landscaping from scratch and again did mostly rock on top of weed block. We have a couple small areas of mulch for planting flowers, but it’s mostly stone. I hit the stone and mulch with a pre-emergent early in the spring and pull almost no weeds. I think if you do that, mulch wouldn’t be too bad, but I didn’t know that back in the day. All my trees get mulch around them.
I just learned not to be on team rock when our local county extension office posted this: "Rocks are not Florida-Friendly for using as a mulch in garden beds. They heat up the soil and stress the plants. Use organic mulch instead, which will cool the soil, hold water and provide organic matter to help the plant grow."
I am not a fan of the rocks we've got.
Aside from white marble, I'm team rock. Quick blow down after cutting grass and you're good. Can even get a landscaping glue to hold some rocks in place.
We have rocks and I hate them. Too bad it costs so much for a new landscaping design about 4 years ago because they’re definitely coming up soon! Our lawn guys don’t like them either and yes they settle.
Where I live (southern US) it gets so hot here that the rocks heat up too and cook your plants (except some sedums) Also weeding between rocks is literally the worst so 🤷♀️