Red, and black
Garden centre
Dyed tan bark
About $75
The red or black stuff. Bark that has been dyed for the colour, then sold by the cubic metre. You buy the look. A tree crew does not arrive with a load of red or black dyed tan bark.
Before you ask for mulch
Dyed tan bark, garden mulch, and arborist chips are three different products.
People say “mulch” and mean dyed tan bark, the red or black bark from a garden centre. The free MulchSpot list is not that. It is arborist bush mulch: fresh chips from a tree job. The prices below are typical bulk prices per cubic metre. They are not a quote from MulchSpot.
Garden supply
Bush mulch
About $40 to $45
Natural bush mulch from a garden supply, sold by the cubic metre. You can usually order the amount you want. It is a bought load from a yard, not a dyed colour, and not a free drop from a crew already on a job.
From an arborist
Arborist bush mulch
About $20 to $25
Chips from tree work. If you buy this from an arborist, this is the usual bulk price. On the free MulchSpot list you are asking for this same kind of material, when a crew is already working nearby and can drop the truck.
Buy 10 cubic metres and the gap is easy to see. Dyed tan bark is about $750. Garden-supply bush mulch is about $400 to $450. Arborist bush mulch is about $200 to $250.
How to tell them apart
Dyed tan bark is an even colour. The red is red through the bay, and the black is black. A yard has coloured the bark so the garden looks finished on the day it goes down. It does not look like a branch that went through a chipper this week.
Garden-supply bush mulch is natural timber, brown and tan, from a landscape yard. You name the cubic metres and a truck from that yard brings that amount. The colour is the wood.
Arborist chips are whatever tree was in the chipper. A load may be hardwood, softwood, or stringy pieces, with fines, twigs, and chunks mixed together. Sharper blades make a different cut from dull ones. One load will not match the next, and none of them are a dyed colour.
What dyed tan bark is for
Buy dyed tan bark when the colour is the point and you want a set number of cubic metres from a garden centre. You are paying for the look and for a measured delivery. About $75 a cubic metre is the usual bulk price.
Buy garden-supply bush mulch when you want natural mulch, still in a set amount, without the dye. About $40 to $45 a cubic metre is the usual yard price. That is a purchase from the yard. It is not a place on a standby list.
Buy a load from an arborist when you want the chips and you want to arrange the drop yourself. About $20 to $25 a cubic metre is the usual price of that purchase. That price belongs to a load you order. It is not the price of the free list.
What the free list is
You do not pay MulchSpot, and you do not order a colour or a cubic-metre total. A local crew drops a load of arborist chips when they are already working nearby. A load is not guaranteed. If a truck comes, you get what is on it. Loads are often large, commonly about 5 to 15 cubic metres, which is far more than a few bags. Extra chips stay with you. Share them with a neighbour if the pile is bigger than the garden. They are not collected afterwards. The free drop is not red tan bark, black tan bark, or a measured delivery from a garden supply.
Which one to ask for
If the garden needs that particular red or black finish, order dyed tan bark and pay the garden-centre price. If it needs a measured amount of natural mulch on a day you choose, order bush mulch from a garden supply. If a whole truck of fresh chips is useful and you can wait until a crew is nearby, join the free list.
Before you spread any of the three, read the Queensland government mulching guide. It explains how a mulch layer holds water in the soil, and why the mulch should sit clear of the stems.
Photos: red and black dyed mulch, Tomwsulcer. Bush mulch, Jmalo. Chip pile, Geo Lightspeed7. Those two are CC BY-SA.