The Best Mulch Alternatives

Mulch Alternatives

The benefits of mulching your flower beds, trees, and other decorative plants is undeniable! Mulch retains moisture in the underlying soil, insulates roots from freezing temperatures, prevents erosion, suppresses weed growth, and provides nutrients to plants as it breaks down over time. Mulch is a go-to for any organic landscaping project, and it’s for good reason!

However, buying commercially produced mulch can be expensive. If you’re an eco-warrior and want to bring sustainability to your yard, consider some of these great mulch alternatives:

• Compost

Compost is one of the best mulch alternatives you can pick because it is packed full of all of the nutrients your plants could ever want. Compost systems are easy to set up, even on small properties. While compost won’t look as good as traditional mulches, the health benefits for your plants make it worth it. Plus, all of the other mulch alternatives listed here can be added to a compost pit first to help them break down.

• Old newspapers

Have a stack of old newspapers that’s been piling up forever? Turn yesterday’s news into today’s mulch! Just shred the newspaper down into small clippings and apply everywhere you would put traditional mulch.

• Grass clippings

Instead of burning or throwing away all of your grass clippings, simply bag them up and spread them back out just like you would traditional mulch.

• Leaves

Just like grass clippings, leaves can be a great mulch alternative for people who want to keep things more natural. Process your fallen leaves with a leaf mulcher to make them a more workable consistency before applying them to your landscape.

• Pine needles

Pine needles are sold at landscaping centers everywhere as mulch, so why not just pick up the ones that have fallen at your home and use those instead? If you want just pine needles in your mulch, you’ll have to pick through them after raking them up, but that’s a small amount of effort to put into one of the best looking mulch alternatives out there! Not to mention that pine needle mulch sells for big bucks, so the DIY version will save you lots of cash.

No matter what mulch material you decide to go with, Oasis Palms & Landscaping can use it to turn your yard into a natural, eco-friendly paradise. Call us at (813) 370-1135 or contact us online to schedule your landscaping consultation today!