Shredded Mulch in Wisconsin: Covering Ground the Season Leaves Bare

Bare soil does not last here. A graded lot after a build, a bank beside a new channel, a strip of foundation ground that was under a contractor's track in May: leave any of it open and the first heavy summer storm moves it, and the first winter leaves it crusted and weed-seeded. Shredded mulch is the usual cover for that ground, and the shredded texture is the part that matters, because it mats together and stays put where a chunky bark nugget floats off in the first runoff.

It is shredded hardwood, natural brown, in consistent medium-sized shreds, sold here by the yard. The listed working depth is a 2 to 4 inch layer.

Bare graded ground after a build, and the first thing that goes on it

The job it gets ordered for most around here is covering ground that has just been disturbed and has nothing growing on it yet.

• New beds cut into ground the builders compacted, where mulch goes on the moment the planting is done.
• Tree rings and foundation plantings, holding moisture in through a dry July and keeping a mower away from the trunk.
• The bank above a swale or a dry creek, where the mulch holds the soil while the plants get established.
• Borders and shrub beds that come up thin and gray by mid-season without a cover.
• Bed edges along a patio or a path, where the mulch line does the visual work of separating hard surface from planting.

What it will not do is fill a low spot. Mulch is a surface layer and it breaks down; earth is what changes a grade, and that is Fill Dirt.

Hardwood shreds on clay that stays wet and sand that dries out by July

• On lake-plain and Fox Valley clay, the ground holds water already. Keep the layer at the lower end of the range, because a thick mulch mat on wet clay keeps the soil surface cold and slow in spring.
• On Central Sands outwash, the opposite: the soil dries out fast, and here the mulch is doing its best work by shading the surface through the dry weeks.
• On northern till and sandy loam, a shredded layer buffers the soil temperature through the swings of a Northwoods spring.
• On a Driftless slope, shredded material knits and holds where a coarse bark would wash to the bottom of the run in a storm.
• Through the winter, a mulch layer evens out the freeze-thaw cycling that heaves shallow-rooted perennials out of the ground. That is a real reason to mulch here that has nothing to do with summer.
• It breaks down. That is a feature in a bed, where the organic matter goes back into the soil, and a nuisance anywhere you wanted permanence, which is what landscape stone is for.

Three inches, not six, and why the trunk stays clear

• Two inches over an established bed that is being refreshed, three to four inches on new or bare ground. Four is the ceiling, not a target.
• Deeper is worse. A thick layer sheds rain rather than letting it through, keeps the soil cold into May and gives voles somewhere to overwinter against a stem.
• Keep it off trunks and stems. A ring pulled back a few inches from the bark is the difference between a mulched tree and a rotted collar.
• Fabric underneath is optional and often unhelpful. Mulch is meant to break down into the soil, and a sheet of plastic between the two stops that happening.
• Fluff and level it rather than treading it down. Compacting mulch is the one way to make it shed water.
• Top it up rather than replacing it. A bed that gets an inch each spring stays at depth without the old layer ever being stripped out.

Shredded Mulch against River Rock and a bare soil bed

Most properties here want both. Stone where nothing is growing and the surface has to stay, mulch where something is growing and the soil needs feeding.

Yards of Shredded Mulch for a creek bank, a patio border and a foundation strip

Length times width times depth in inches divided by 12, then divided by 27, gives cubic yards. This product is sold by the yard, which is how most people order it, and the site's calculators list shredded mulch at about 600 lb per cubic yard, or 0.30 tons per yard, if you need the weight.

• Example, the planted bank above a dry creek, 30 ft by 5 ft at 3 inches: 150 square feet x 0.25 = 37.5 cubic feet, divided by 27 = 1.4 cubic yards, which is about 0.4 tons.
• Example, a border bed along a patio at 26 ft by 4 ft, plus three tree rings 6 ft across. The bed is 104 square feet, and each ring is 3.14 x 3 x 3 = 28 square feet, so 84 for three, giving 188 square feet. At 3 inches: 188 x 0.25 = 47 cubic feet, divided by 27 = 1.7 cubic yards, about 0.5 tons.
• Example, a foundation planting strip on freshly graded ground, 48 ft by 3.5 ft at 4 inches: 168 square feet x 0.333 = 56 cubic feet, divided by 27 = 2.1 cubic yards, about 0.6 tons.

Together that is around 5.2 yards, which is the kind of order that makes a single delivery worth arranging rather than three trips. A cubic yard covers about 162 square feet at 2 inches, 108 at 3 inches and 81 at 4 inches. The mulch calculator takes bed measurements and returns the yardage.

Pick a quantity and a delivery date on this page. Delivery is arranged at checkout from your ZIP code, and a mulch pile takes up more room than its weight suggests, so leave the truck somewhere it can tip and reverse out cleanly.