Mulch Calculator

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What amount of mulch do I need?

Most of the time, mulch is sold by the cubic yard. With 1 inch of mulch, 1 cubic yard can cover 324 square feet, and 2 inches of mulch can cover 162 square feet. Area is important but weight is also important in everyday life. We don't always take into account the weight of the products we purchase in our everyday lives. Pounds and Kilograms are the two major forms of weight measurement. A few companies display the weight in Pounds, while others display it in Kilograms. It's simple to convert Pounds to Kilograms.

The area covered by 1 cubic yard of mulch
Wanted depth Square feet
Coverage about
1 inch covers 324 square feet (18' x 18'), 2 inches cover 162 square feet (13' x 13'), and 3 inches cover 108 square feet (11' x 10').
9' x 9' = 81 sq. ft.

Mulch can be a gardener's best friend, along with a good kneeling mat and a lot of ladybirds that eat aphids. Mulch is the perfect top layer for flowerbeds. It is usually made of bark chips, but it can also be made of straw, rubber, hardwood, or gravel. Mulch keeps moisture in, keeps weeds from growing, and gives beds a neat look.

If you want to know how to figure out how much mulch you need for your garden, we can help. You can use this formula if you know the square footage of the area you want to cover:

Needed mulch (cubic yards) = Area x desired depth (in) / 324.
The above formula helps you figure out how many cubic yards of mulch you might need, but you may be buying your mulch by the bag, which is usually sold in cubic feet in the US and in liter/litre bags in the UK. So, let's look at some measurement conversions.

How many cubic feet of mulch is in a yard?
The amount of mulch in a cubic yard is 27 cubic feet. In the US, a standard bag of mulch is 2 cubic feet. This means that 1 cubic yard is equal to 13 1/2 bags.

Mulch can be bought in big bags or small ones, so let's go over the most common sizes.

How many 2-cubic-foot bags of mulch do you need to cover a yard?
Most bags of mulch are 2 cubic feet in size. Since a cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, it is the same as 13 1/2 bags of mulch.

How many 3 cubic foot bags of mulch do you need to cover a yard?
A cubic yard of mulch is equal to 9 bags of mulch that are 3 cubic feet each (there are 27 cubic feet in a yard).

How many 1.5-cubic-foot bags of mulch do you need to cover a yard?
A cubic yard of mulch is equal to 18 bags of 1.5-cubic-foot mulch (there are 27 cubic feet in a yard).

The sizes of bags for 1 cubic yard
To sum up, 1 yard of mulch is the same as:
27 bags that are each 1 cu.ft.
18 bags that are 1.5 cu. ft.
13 1/2 bags that are 2 cu.ft.
9 bags that are 3 cu.ft.

If you want to figure out by hand how many bags of mulch you need to cover a square-foot area, here's how...

Using square feet to do the math
To figure out how many bags you need to cover a square foot area, multiply the square feet by the mulch depth in inches, divide by 12, and then divide by the size of the bag (in cubic feet).

Bags of mulch = Area (in square feet) x Depth (in inches) / 12 / Bag Size (cu ft).

How much mulch each bag holds
Here's a quick chart to help you figure out how much mulch a standard US bag size will cover for a mulch depth of 1 to 4 inches. Then, we'll talk more about how to measure and figure out how much mulch you might need.

How much mulch a 2-cubic-foot bag will cover
Desired depth
Coverage per bag
1 inch covers 24 square feet, 2 inches cover 12 square feet, 3 inches cover 8 square feet, and 4 inches cover 6 square feet.

How much mulch a 3-cubic-foot bag will cover

Desired depth
Coverage per bag
1 inch covers 36 square feet, 2 inches cover 18 square feet, 3 inches cover 12 square feet, and 4 inches cover 9 square feet.

How much a 100-liter bag of mulch will cover
In the UK, mulch comes in bags that are 1 litre. Here's how to change 100-litre mulch bags into other units.

Desired depth

Coverage per 100L bag
1 inch covers 42 square feet, 2 inches cover 21 square feet, 3 inches cover 14 square feet, and 4 inches cover 11 square feet.

How to measure and figure out how much mulch you need
You need to know how much ground you want to cover with your mulch, whether it's a flower bed, a playground, or a path. Here is a detailed guide on how to measure and figure out numbers.

Figure out your size
It's important to always use the same unit. Don't measure one thing in feet, another in inches, and another in centimetres. US gardeners should use feet, while British gardeners should probably use metres or centimetres, but just pick one and stick to it.

Measure how long and wide the area is that you want to mulch. If it's too big to measure with a tape, just lay a piece of twine along each side, cut it to fit, and then measure the two pieces of twine to find out how big it is. If the shape isn't straight, cut it into squares or rectangles and measure each one separately. If the area is round, you can treat it like a square that fits around the circle. Don't worry about the extra mulch in the corners; it's always better to have extra mulch. But if you want to know exactly how big your circle is, you can use our square footage calculator here.

You should also consider depth. If the mulch's main purpose is to look nice, 2 inches is fine. If you want to keep water in a dry climate or block the sun from reaching weeds that keep coming back, you'll need 4 inches. If you're not sure, use 3 inches as a middle ground. Make sure to use the same unit for all of your calculations. If you're using inches, change them to feet.

• list item2" = 0.17 feet or 0.051 metres
• 3" = 0.25 feet or 0.076 metres
• 4" = 0.33 feet or 0.102 metres

Figure it out
Just multiply the three numbers together to get the amount of mulch you need.
volume = length width depth

US imperial example
20 feet by 8 feet by 0.25 feet equals 40 cubic feet in the UK.
6.09m × 2.44m × 0.076cm = 1.13 cubic metres

If you've taken separate measurements for an area with odd shapes, you'll need to figure out the volume of each shape separately and then add up the totals to get the volume.

Check the unit of sale
You might buy mulch by the cubic foot in the US. If you used feet to follow the steps above, you already know how much you need. If you are buying a larger amount, it may be sold in cubic yards, so you may need to convert:
cubic yards = 27 x cube feet cube feet = 1728 x cube inches

Most mulch in the UK is sold in litres. One cubic metre is equal to 1000 litres, which is a common size for bags of mulch. Also, each product usually says how many square metres it covers, which means that the shop has already thought about the depth. In this case, you just multiply the width by the length of the ground to get the area and compare it to the m2 number on the product.

We have an article about how much a cubic yard of mulch weighs if you want to know how much your mulch order is likely to weigh.

So it's easy to cover your garden... A lot of fuss over nothing, really!

We recommend this article from Gardener's World if you want to learn more about the different kinds of mulch and how to use them.