Create A Bold Look With Black Mulch

Do you wish your flower beds stood out more against the rest of your landscaping? One way to achieve this bold, defined look is to mulch the beds with black wood mulch. Black stands in stark contrast to any green grass around the flower beds, and it can help make your colorful flowers pop, too. Here are some tips you will want to follow when using black mulch in your landscaping designs.

1. Buy a quality mulch product.

As with most products, there are so many different brands that make black mulch. The cheaper brands often use cheaper dyes, which will rinse off the mulch much sooner, leaving you with a more subdued look. Paying an extra $1 or $2 per cubic foot will give you better quality black mulch that will continue to look black throughout the season. A good way to tell the difference between cheap and high quality mulch is to pick up a handful. If the black dye rubs off easily on your hands, the mulch is a lower-quality product. Good mulch won't leech much, if any, dye onto your hands. 

2. Consider having the mulch delivered in bulk.

You can buy black mulch by the bag, but it's generally more convenient to have it delivered in bulk. This often means the mulch will be a bit dryer, which means the dye should be more stable within the wood. The plastic bags trap some moisture in the mulch, which works okay for lighter colors, but is not ideal when working with black mulch that gets washed out so easily.

3. Add some other black elements to your landscaping.

To avoid having the garden beds look too bold, add some other black features to your landscape. You could add some basic, wrought iron railings to your patio, paint a fence black, or even just hang some hanging baskets that are black. The added black items will draw the eye across your yard and make everything appear to be tied together.

4. Bank your beds.

Make sure your garden beds are gently sloped, and that there is a trough along the edge of the bed where it meets your yard. This trough will catch any of the black mulch so it does not get scattered all over the lawn and make a mess. Specks of black mulch in the green grass are more obvious than specks of natural colored mulch.

With the tips above, you can truly use black mulch to your advantage in a landscape design. For help with black landscaping mulch in your local area, contact a landscaping company!