Tall and Beautiful: A Blog About Tree Services

Posted on: 3 March 2022

If you own a daycare, you understand that safe outside play is an important part of the children's days. Mulching the playground is one way you can help provide a safe play outlet

1. Softens Falls

Falling on bare dirt or worse, pavement, is an easy way to get an injury when you are a child. This is especially true when running and playing. Wood mulch provides a cushion, so falls rarely cause injury beyond bruised pride. Further, mulch creates a nonslip surface because it absorbs moisture instead of allowing puddles to form. Wet mulch is able to retain its traction abilities and reduce falls overall.

2. Non-Toxic

If you opt for undyed and untreated wood mulch, or at least those treated with non-toxic options, then the wood is perfectly safe for use around children. All it consists of is natural wood. Quality wood mulch will also be cut in a manner that reduces the chances of splinters, so the kids aren't likely to get a painful prick when playing on the ground.

3. Appearance 

A daycare playground should be a warm and inviting place, so you likely don't want a lot of bare ground and sparse weedy growth showing. When a playground is mulched, first any plants are removed and a weed-blocking liner is put down, followed by the mulch. The site will instantly look better and more attractive to both the kids and their parents. You will also spend less time tending to the appearance since the mulch will suppress future weeds.

4. Budget-Friendly

There are other options for playgrounds, including synthetic rubber mulches and rubber padding. Although viable, these wood mulch alternatives can be very costly compared to attractive and serviceable wood mulch. Further, some people have complaints about rubber mulch, as it can work its way into the dirt and become difficult and expensive to remove if you ever re-do the playground landscaping.

5. Accessible

Your daycare playground needs to be accessible to all children, even if they use a wheelchair or must be rolled out in a stroller. A certain type of wood mulch, called engineered wood mulch, is cut to standardized chip sizes that allow the mulch to lay stable on the ground to create a reasonably flat, albeit only slightly bumpy, surface. You can usually push wheeled devices quite easily onto this type of playground mulch.

Contact a daycare playground mulch provider like Watson's Tree Services-Soil & Mulch if you need more assistance with an order.