What Material to Use Around Stepping Stones

Mulch

• Mulch is an excellent material to surround your stepping stones with. You might choose natural colored mulches such as shredded pine or cedar. You could use dyed mulch. It is available in such colors as red, blue and purple. Bagged mulch is sold by many home improvement centers. However, if your project will require a large quantity, many local landscapers can deliver loose mulch by the truckload. As they cater to a more specialized clientele, they may carry more varieties and color choices than a typical home improvement store.

  A newer type of mulch is chopped rubber mulch. Made from recycled tires, it too is available in a number of colors including brown and red. PermaLife and Vigoro are two popular brands of rubber mulch.

Chips

• Some type of chipped material might look good surrounding your stepping stones. You might select nuggets or chips of pine bark. Like mulch, bark nuggets can be purchased either bagged or loose. Another option would be to use white marble chips. By using bagged marble chips, you could create a bold contrasting look if you teamed the white chips with a walkway of dyed concrete stepping stones. Chipped hardwood also makes an excellent mulch. Exposure to the sun will gradually fade their flat surfaces to a soft gray. Wood chips are sometimes available for free. The public works departments in many cities give away chipped wood to anyone willing to haul it. Everybody benefits. The cities aren't saddled with mountains of wood chips and homeowners get free landscaping material. As an example of this, the city of Syracuse, New York, has provided free wood chips to the public for many years.

  Keep in mind that any natural material such as wood chips or mulch will gradually decay and rot away. Dyed mulch will also begin fading in the sun. Therefore all will require periodic replenishment to maintain the desired appearance. Additionally, weeds and grass will eventually begin sprouting and growing up through these natural materials. You may need regular applications of an herbicide to keep them at bay.

Gravel

• If you used gravel beneath your stepping stones to help keep them level, you could surround the stepping stones with the same type of material. Finely chipped stone might make an excellent material to use. Like marble chips, stone won't rot away. Ultimately, your choices will be dictated by your personal sense of style and your landscaping budget.