aggregates · sold by the cubic yard
Mulch Calculator
Type the bed you are covering and how deep the mulch goes. The answer comes back in cubic yards, which is how mulch is ordered — any grind, any species.
What to order
2.04cubic yards
10 ft short side20 ft long side
This answer is a volume, so it is the same for a coarse grind and a fine one, and for any species.
The formula, written out
(20 ft × 10 ft × 3 in ÷ 12) × (1 + 10% waste) ÷ 27 = 2.04 cubic yards
The formula above is the one that produced the numbers: the page asks for both in the same call, so the two cannot drift apart.
A bed 20 ft by 10 ft at 3 inches deep is 50 cubic feet of mulch. Adding the 10% waste factor makes 55 cubic feet, which is 55 ÷ 27 = 2.04 cubic yards. At 2 cubic feet a bag that would be 28 bags, which is why anything this size is bought in bulk.
Every other calculator on this site answers in cubic yards and tons, because aggregates are sold both ways depending on the region. Mulch is not.Yards price it by the cubic yard and by the bag, and most publish no weight at all.
For what it is worth: the yards that do publish one put a cubic yard of coarse shredded bark at roughly 400 to 700 pounds loose, read from 5 listings on 2026-08-15. That figure is here to tell you whether your truck will carry it, and it is not what you order by. No yard we found publishes a bulk weight for the fine grind at all.
“Approx. Weight: ~400–500 lbs. per cubic yard”
North Bay Materials, black bark mulch — recycled wood, water-based colorant · read 2026-08-15
“Weight Per Cubic Yard: +/- 500 lbs”
Cummin Landscape Supply, Atlanta, its whole mulch line · read 2026-08-15
“1 cubic yard of the shredded pine bark weighs approximately 500-600 pounds.”
Sands & Soils, shredded pine bark mulch (its cedar mulch states the same range) · read 2026-08-15
“Weight: Approx. 500–600 lbs per cubic yard”
North Bay Materials, Milano red bark mulch — recycled hardwood, dyed · read 2026-08-15
“About 500–700 lbs per cubic yard”
Ottr Landscape Supply, Boston, Massachusetts, hemlock mulch — double-ground hemlock bark, no dye · read 2026-08-15
How many cubic yards of mulch do I need?
Multiply the bed area in square feet by the depth in inches, divide by 324, and that is your cubic yards before waste. This page does it for you and adds the waste factor. As a rule of thumb, one cubic yard covers about 108 square feet at 3 inches deep.
How deep should mulch be?
Two to three inches for an established bed, and 3 inches is what this page defaults to. Deeper than four starts holding water against roots and can keep rain from reaching the soil at all. Keep it pulled back from trunks and stems whatever depth you settle on.
Why does this page not give me a weight in tons?
Because mulch is not sold by weight. Every yard we read prices it by the cubic yard or by the bag, and most of them do not publish a weight at all — the ones that do disagree with each other by a wide margin, and the fine grind has no published bulk weight anywhere. Rather than print a tonnage that is right for one grind and made up for the other, this page answers in the unit mulch is actually ordered in.
Does the type of mulch change how much I need?
Not how much: a bed of a given size and depth holds the same volume whatever is going into it. What the type changes is what it weighs and how long it lasts — a coarse grind settles less and breaks down slower than a fine one, and dyed hardwood, pine bark and cedar all cover the same area per cubic yard. Because this page works in volume, the answer above is the same for all of them.
Is bagged mulch cheaper than bulk?
Rarely, above about half a cubic yard. Bags are usually 2 cubic feet, so a cubic yard is 13 to 14 bags — at which point bulk delivery is almost always less per yard, plus you are not flattening bags. Below that, minimum delivery charges usually make bags the cheaper answer.