Live in Key West, gravel or rubber mulch?

[robsp2000]

I have a small yard where we use Home Depot "Brown Mulch". We have Foxtails, Lady Palms and Alexander Palms. My deck is painted light gray (so you can actually walk on it in the summer). My dogs insist on playing in the mulch and then tracking up tons of dirt and mulch which is staining the crap out of the deck. We are thinking on switching to gravel or rubber mulch, any recommendations on which would be better for my climate?

[_Keith]

Option 1 - Best for the plants, get rid of the dogs. Guessing your are not going to to that.

Option 2 - Fence the dogs out of the mulch, Guessing you are not going to do that.

Option 3 - Get a pressure washer to clean the deck easily. Guessing you are not going to do that.

Option 4 - Gravel, and chemical fertilizers.

Option 5 - Plant only native palms and other palms that need no care in your environment.

So, you have no real soil to begin with. Over time natural mulch will do wonders to help that. Rubber mulch over time will break down into some pretty nasty things, and then you'll have to decide what to do with it, too. No best answer here other than Option 5, and that is boring, but there you do.

[Kim]

Worst choice -- rubber mulch. Hot, no benefits to the plants.

Gravel could be all right, if you don't have hardwood floors that could be scratched by gravel bits stuck in shoes or paws.

What about a mulch that won't travel so easily? Have you looked at using pine straw?

[Scott Cohen]

Gravel, rubber mulch is evil.

[Ken Johnson]

Gravel. Option 4.

[Pedro 65]

Paint the Deck Brown ?

Pete

[MattyB]

Dogs: this is why we can't have nice things

[Palmdude]

Always go organic to benefit your soil composition. Mulch is the easiest as it breaks down and turns into soil. It also holds in moisture and keeps the root zone cooler. Gravel can look nice but always turns into a pain in the neck if you don't put down weed block material to prevent it from sinking into the soil. I don't recommend the weed block though as it's not so great at allowing oxygen into the root zone and weeds grow right through it anyhow.

Is the problem that the mulch is dyed? Get undyed mulch?

[robsp2000]

So rubber mulch is out, I'm glad because I really didn't want to use that stuff.

I had the deck brown originally but it got so hot in summer that you couldn't walk on it.

So I'm thinking it might be a tan color river stone gravel that I'll use. The area is very small, my deck takes up the whole yard. There is about 3ft of perimeter space that runs around the whole deck where the palms are.

I didn't even think if the mulch was dyed. I bet it is, it's amazing how fast and uniformily these dogs cover the entire deck with brown paw prints. And if I don't get to it fast it is a SOB to scrub off. I'll check to see if there is any that isn't, I would def. want to keep real mulch if possible.

[Ben in Norcal]

Brown deck + sandals. I wouldn't want to forego the soil amendment benefits if I lived on a large calcareous rock.

I didn't know it got that hot in Key West...I thought you guys rarely got out of the 80s?

[richnorm]

Undyed mulch, goodness knows what they are using to stain it!

[mnorell]

Ditch the dyed mulch. But stick with a nice acid organic mulch for the health of your soil. Your Wodyetias and Rhapis will suffer on the calcareous substrate with heaps of chlorosis without constant amendment and the mulch will go a long way toward that end. The cypress mulch should be avoided as it will not decompose readily and is usually dyed, plus there are other ecological issues that justify staying away. A natural pine bark mulch, and not the big bark chips, should do you well. You can also get free mulch from Monroe County from road crews and also private tree services. The city of Key West may also have a program. I believe Waste Management has crapped out on their original contractual obligation to provide mulch and are now planning to incinerate (!) all yard waste. Another argument for all of us to compost our yard waste as we lose land to the carbon cycle while the ocean creeps higher around us...

[empireo22]

Brown deck + sandals. I wouldn't want to forego the soil amendment benefits if I lived on a large calcareous rock.

I didn't know it got that hot in Key West...I thought you guys rarely got out of the 80s?

even if its 88 there the sun is so strong it heats everything way beyond that....or it seems.

[Alicehunter2000]

Pine straw....clean .....cheap....easy.....good for soil

[redbeard917]

Gravel does have its downfalls. The rocks are heavier than soil and will eventually sink into it. But, this may not be as much of an issue with your rocky substrate. And your dogs will scatter it everywhere just like anything else. Hopefully the barrier of the deck on one side and fence or whatever on the other will keep it in bounds. Maybe use the larger river gravel so it can't get stuck in their paws. As a gardener first and foremost, I only use finely ground organic matter as mulch, sometimes with pine straw or pine bark on top, and can't stand having gravel in my soil. But your property's needs and priorities may vary. Another possibility that just occurred to me, you could mulch around the palms with something organic, and have the expanse in between be a layer of gravel.

[DoomsDave]

A canopy for the deck? Then you can paint the deck brown and hide the footy-prints . . .

(I'm sure there's a reason you didn't do that, either. Regulation? Expense? Both?)

[robsp2000]

Our yard is about 35 ft wide. The deck is about 30 ft wide and is elevated about 2 ft. The palms live in that perimeter area. On a separate note, the builders of this place put in 9 double foxtails, 2 double Alexanders, 2 bottle palms and 2 Bucaneer palms in that tiny area. What a mess that was.

Just went to Home Depot and the brown mulch does indeed have colorant in it. So I'm skipping the gravel. Keeping the deck gray (it is really unbearable in the sun when it was brown, even though it doesn't get into the 90s here). Plus we have a small pool and want to keep some sun on the deck.

They have 3 types of not dyed mulch. Eucalyptus, Cypress or Pine Bark. Any recommendations on which one is best.

[mnorell]

Pine bark pine bark pine bark. The mantra. Acid, degradeable, and converts to rich, friable humus in time. Cypress is just plain no good. Eucalyptus may be allelopathic but many variables involved, so impossible to say with certainty. So sorry to hear they saddled you with all those foxtails. You must live in a chlorotic nightmare. I refuse to plant them because down here in the keys they look plain nasty due to their intolerance of high-pH soils. Too bad they didn't give you nine more Buccaneers instead!!

[akamu]

Mulch around the palms and add removeable flagstone over the top where the dogs run kind of like the nong nooch botanical gardens. then you can add mulch as needed later . I agree with the pine bark idea .

[robsp2000]

Pine bark pine bark pine bark. The mantra. Acid, degradeable, and converts to rich, friable humus in time. Cypress is just plain no good. Eucalyptus may be allelopathic but many variables involved, so impossible to say with certainty. So sorry to hear they saddled you with all those foxtails. You must live in a chlorotic nightmare. I refuse to plant them because down here in the keys they look plain nasty due to their intolerance of high-pH soils. Too bad they didn't give you nine more Buccaneers instead!!

I know. I love the Buccaneers, except their incredibly slow growth rate. We put some Royals in our front yard where we have some Buccaneers too. They all had about 3 inches of trunk two years ago. Now the royals are at about 6 feet of trunk and the Buccaneers are at about 4 and a half inches of trunk.

Thanks for the advice on the mulch. The foxtails are killing me, they looked really healthy for the first 18 months after they went in. Then we ran into a problem where the new growth would open up from the spear and look fine. Then about 5 days later the leaflets on the top of the frond would start to frizzle and look like thin pieces of straw. We have been fertilizing with palm special and adding manganese. I just noticed something interesting today on one of the newer fronds. It grew so half of it was in our second floor covered balcony. The part of the frond that was shaded was in perfect condition, the rest that was exposed to sun was frayed. Anyone know if there is a deficiency that would make the new growth more susceptible to sunburn?

[Alicehunter2000]

Pine = acidic = good

[mnorell]

Pine bark pine bark pine bark. The mantra. Acid, degradeable, and converts to rich, friable humus in time. Cypress is just plain no good. Eucalyptus may be allelopathic but many variables involved, so impossible to say with certainty. So sorry to hear they saddled you with all those foxtails. You must live in a chlorotic nightmare. I refuse to plant them because down here in the keys they look plain nasty due to their intolerance of high-pH soils. Too bad they didn't give you nine more Buccaneers instead!!

I know. I love the Buccaneers, except their incredibly slow growth rate. We put some Royals in our front yard where we have some Buccaneers too. They all had about 3 inches of trunk two years ago. Now the royals are at about 6 feet of trunk and the Buccaneers are at about 4 and a half inches of trunk.

Thanks for the advice on the mulch. The foxtails are killing me, they looked really healthy for the first 18 months after they went in. Then we ran into a problem where the new growth would open up from the spear and look fine. Then about 5 days later the leaflets on the top of the frond would start to frizzle and look like thin pieces of straw. We have been fertilizing with palm special and adding manganese. I just noticed something interesting today on one of the newer fronds. It grew so half of it was in our second floor covered balcony. The part of the frond that was shaded was in perfect condition, the rest that was exposed to sun was frayed. Anyone know if there is a deficiency that would make the new growth more susceptible to sunburn?

I plant as many buccaneers as I can afford, when I see them on sale, and plant and forget. I have two large ones (trunking) that have really grown noticeably in about four years. The others are smaller and still somewhat slow but I enjoy them at their size and I just don't sweat it. They are beautiful and utterly trouble-free and that goes a long way for me.

I think you might need to apply a large amount of elemental sulfur over the root-zone with your Wodyetias. Try the 'soil acidifier' made by Rootone (you can find it at HD on Roosevelt, probably also at Marc House) and it is a it pricey but it works and has some added microbials as well I think. It helped stop the striping on my royals, in combination with Manganese sulfate as your description of frizzle-top generally means Manganese deficiency. I am down on royals as well due to this type of problem but am stuck with several large ones so I will persist in amending them.