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While you don’t need to put anything down before mulch, you can apply a pre-emergent herbicide to prevent weed growth. As long as you remove weeds before you spread mulch, you should be in the clear. But a herbicide is something that you can put down before mulch as an extra layer of protection.

That depends on the number of cubic feet in each bag. Ten 2-cubic-foot bags of mulch will cover 20 cubic feet, while 10 3-cubic-foot bags of mulch will cover 30 cubic feet. Learning how to DIY mulch can save you money and help you repurpose natural items such as wood chips, pine needles, and leaves.

The best mulches for trees are wood chips, bark nuggets, or pine straw. Depending on your goals, you may want to avoid using plastic, stone, rubber, or wet grass clippings. Plastic mulch prevents water from reaching the mulched areas of your tree, stones don’t offer any nutritional benefits to the soil, rubber can release byproducts into the soil when it decomposes, and wet grass clippings can lead to rot. 

Plastic may prove beneficial in cold climates in the winter, but wood chips are the ideal option for most environments.

Nonorganic mulch, like river rocks, pebbles, or lava rock, technically lasts the longest. It helps with moisture retention and weed control but doesn’t break down and release nutrients like organic mulch. Wood mulch decomposes slowly, which can help it last longer than leaf or straw mulch, but it won’t provide as many nutrients as quickly as the faster decomposing types.