Choosing the Right Cover for Your Garden

What's the best bark for garden beds or borders?

Bark Nuggets gives beds and borders a clean, uniform finish. It's a chunky reddish-brown bark that holds its colour, and, laid to a good depth, suppresses weeds effectively while also finishing the border visually. It's equally suited to finishing off a border you've just planted up or refreshing one that's thinned out over summer, and it beds in cleanly around established shrubs and perennials without smothering them.

Pine Mini Chips do a similar job at a finer grade, built for pots, tubs, window boxes and anywhere a chunkier bark would swamp the planting. Its smaller particle size settles closer to the compost surface, so it holds moisture in containers just as well as it suppresses weeds, without looking out of scale against smaller plants.

What’s the best mulch for soil health?

Spruce Ornamental Bark is naturally acidic and 100% peat-free, making it the mulch of choice for rhododendrons, camellias, blueberries, and anything else that needs the soil to stay on the acidic side to thrive. It suppresses weeds, holds moisture, and insulates roots as any mulch does, but its chemistry actively works in favour of ericaceous planting.

Woodland Mulch is composted shredded branches and twigs, so it feeds the soil as it breaks down rather than just sitting on top of it. That makes it as much a soil conditioner as a weed suppressant, and one of the most economical mulches we stock. It turns up in all kinds of ground-covering jobs, as often around trees and shrubs as it is bedding down a chicken run.

What is a safe surfacing product for play areas?

Playbark is tested and certified to BS EN 1176 for impact absorption, a safety standard for surfacing material. Laid correctly, it's suitable for use under play equipment used by children up to six years old, and it withstands repeated impact and foot traffic well beyond what ordinary bark is built for. It also stays noticeably cleaner than standard bark, virtually dust-free, so it doesn't get tracked indoors the way some looser mulches can.