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Earthgro® by Scotts® Black Mulch
Earthgro® by Scotts® Black Mulch
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Specs and Details
Product Label
- This is not the product label. Always read and follow the product label before use.
- View Label - Brown
- View Label - Black
- View Label - Red
- Safety Data Sheets can be found at scottsmsds.com
Rated 3 out of
5
by
JimBoL from
Not the same.
Bought the Scotts brown mulch 2 years ago and some Vigoro from Home Depot. The Vigoro had rocks and other trash in it and lost it's color within the year. This year I decided to buy 40 bags of all Scotts mulch that was on sale. I guess it was on sale because it not anywhere as good as the last time I bought it. It says on the bag that they "never use construction debris". I found chunks of black plastic drainage pipe, vinyl siding, rocks the size of golf balls, some green shiny painted wood that doesn't take the color and chunks of wood I could make a pinewood derby out of. "Proud to be locally made" is on the bag also, but I wouldn't to proud of what they put in it. PS. 2 days after putting it down I have mushrooms growing all over.
Date published: 2025-04-18
Rated 3 out of
5
by
Sandy25 from
Mislabeled product
Just bought 20 bags of the red mulch. Have used in the past and been happy. This time, although all 20 bags were labeled “red” mulch, 3 of the bags were brown. Disappointed.
Date published: 2025-04-01
Rated 3 out of
5
by
crmason from
Not as expected due to color fading
I love this mulch when I first put it down, but in 6 or 7 months the color has definitely faded.
Date published: 2024-06-07
Rated 3 out of
5
by
Big flower bed from
Meh! Will buy local next year!
Bought 34 bags of brown mulch from Home Depot. Color is not consistent. Some bags closer to black. Limited chunks or debris and no mold this year.
Date published: 2024-05-28
Rated 3 out of
5
by
Concerned in Sacratomato from
Is red mulch safe to use in garden?
Bought red mulch for tomatoes to stimulate growth because it said it could be used in vegetable beds. Wonder if the red coloring will leach into the tomatoes. Scotts, can you answer if this product is safe. The MSDS doesn’t say what the red coloring is made from
Date published: 2024-05-23
Rated 3 out of
5
by
Ashley1990 from
Beautiful mulch but a weird fungus grew
We bought this mulch in brown and were loving the mulch until we started to get little ear looking mushrooms growing in it all over the place. Is a wonderful color though!
Date published: 2023-07-16
Rated 3 out of
5
by
Danie from
Colors don't match
I wish I read reviews prior to purchasing. I saw this mulch as a top rated bagged mulch, it was probably a paid review. I bought 15 bags Memorial Day weekend, I just guessed at how much we would we need since we just moved to this house. I was 6 bags short and purchased 8 yesterday just to be safe. This new batch seemed completely different than the previous 15 bags. It had much larger chunks, the color was not saturated black at all. You can clearly see how much lighter and basically brown it is. There's was also more mold in these bags.
Date published: 2023-06-04
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Tammyshu from
Shrinkage of bags of mulch but still same price.
We purchased 100 bags of the brown mulch, we are unfortunately this year unable to cover the same area with the amount purchased since Scott’s has shrank the amount in the bags from 2 to 1.5 sq yards.
I am very disappointed in this, unaware that shrinkage after choosing Scott’s over other companies who have not done this.
I am afraid next time we will have to choose a different company for mulch.
We are a middle class family who does not have extra money to be shorted in a product that we use to stand by.
Date published: 2025-04-21
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Norm47 from
Not so Premium
Purchased 15 bags of Earthgro “Premium” red mulch recently. If this is premium, I would hate to see what’s in a non premium product. Large chunks of wood, rocks, branches, long sticks, and other undesirable were common throughout every bag. The only reason for the second star is I found the color to my liking. Otherwise I would recommend avoiding this product.
Date published: 2025-03-12
Rated 2 out of
5
by
CDCC from
It's not brown.
This is not brown. They took their red dye and mixed it with their black dye. It's deep auburn, but definitely not brown. Brown is classified as very deep orange, with black and grey tones. This ain't it.
Date published: 2024-08-18
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Disapointed in CLE from
white substance on the black mulch
I purchased 25 bags of Scott's Earthgro black mulch from Home Depot in Brookpark Ohio. 9 of the bags had a white substance on the mulch. It could be mold! Some bags had large pieces of sticks and wood. Some bags had a brown substance in the bag. I have pictures of this mulch but can't upload them to the review.
Date published: 2024-06-10
Rated 2 out of
5
by
JDMN from
Poor quality
Every one of the 6 bags of black mulch had ALOT of some white substance all over the wood. I assume this is mold. But in any case it defeats the point of buying black dyed mulch.
Date published: 2024-06-08
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Rob64 from
Rocks
I found rocks like this in a handful of bags I opened this week.
Date published: 2024-05-31
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Allen11 from
Disappointed
I started off with 45 bags of the brown mulch purchased from Home Depot. I am about 1/3 of the way through my landscaping and need to purchase more but am hesitant because of the color differentiation from bag to bag (I will attach photos if able) Some of the brown mulch is a dark brown- some red. It is very noticeable. I wish I had read reviews prior as now I am even more concerned that the color issues will be worse as time goes on. Also, as indicated in some other reviews, I too had white mold and debris in the mulch.
Date published: 2024-04-29
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Di M from
Scotts Earthgro Brown much - strong manure smell
Bought this mulch this weekend from Home Depot and put down. My entire yard now has a strong smell of manure. New smaller bag size for same price plus manure smell mean no much Scotts mulch.
Time will tell if the smell dissipates (or the color fades, as I see in so many reviews), but cannot enjoy the yard as it is now.
Date published: 2024-04-21
Rated 2 out of
5
by
GW23 from
Unacceptable Inconsistent quality
Review did not give me the opportunity to add photos when first review. So here we go again... Apparently no quality control from Scotts. Identical Scotts Earthgrow Brown Mulch had entirely different contents. My first purchase at Home Depot (20+ bags) was good. The mulch was shredded, the color was good, all the bags were consistent. A week and a half later, I bought an additional 32 bags, same Scotts Earthgrow Brown Mulch from the same Home Depot, and every bag looked nothing like the first purchase. The second purchase had larger wood chunks, what appeared to be dirt, and nothing at all like the first batch from the same store. How does this happen? Is there zero quality control at Scotts? See pics. Ignore the actual color; I took these at different times of the day (the color on both was similar, but clearly the shred and quality was completely different)
Date published: 2023-06-22
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Expected Better Quality from
Will not buy again!!
So disappointed! I expected better quality from Scott's. Should have checked reviews before buying. Every bag had white mold all through it. Also, the coloring was not consistent. There were patches of lighter colored pieces in every bag.
Date published: 2023-05-29
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Yardgirl7 from
Brown mulch has 2 different browns
Bought 120 bags of what the bag says “Brown” ..60 were light brown and 60 were dark brown ..will never purchase Scott’s mulch again…..very disappointed
Date published: 2023-05-23
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Lost my Color from
Lost color after one rain storm
We put down 80 bags of brown mulch and two days later it rained....the mulch has lost most of its brown color.....almost looks like untreated wood chips...very disappointed after two days of hard work and mulching......looks like we will have to change brands after using scotts for the last 8 years
Date published: 2023-04-26
Rated 2 out of
5
by
LizzieB from
Disappointed
I had 6 bags of black mulch from last year (right side) that I spread yesterday. I bought 12 more bags of Earth Gro black mulch & spread it in this bed & others yesterday. It rained today & the color completely washed out of it. I am so disappointed! It took me hours to spread it & it looks terrible.
Date published: 2023-04-23
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Tamiacat from
Full of debris!
This is the worst mulch I have ever used. I purchased 15 bags of brown mulch and it was littered with debris. I found pieces of metal in almost every bag. I purchased the mulch because I have had success with other Scotts products, but I will never purchase Scotts mulch again. If I could rebag the mulch and return it I would.
Date published: 2023-04-16
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Ed3328 from
Wood chip mulch
I bought over 300 bags of red earth grow mulch from local Home Depot. As I started to put down the mulch I noticed the size of the pieces of much were extremely large. A lot were as thick as my thumb and a lot of pieces were 5-6” long it is like they never went through the entire mulching process. Unfortunately by the time I really started to notice I had already put down 20-30 bags. Will never buy this product again
Date published: 2025-04-26
Rated 1 out of
5
by
MeMe5 from
Strong manure smell.
I wish I had read the reviews. The manure smell is so strong it has permeated the house. I will never buy Scott’s again. This used to be a company know for quality products. Not so anymore,
Date published: 2025-04-17
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Matthew88 from
Termites
Purchased this product from Home Depot only to find out 32 bags of mulch were infested with Termites. If I put mulch around my house infested with Termites, where do we think those termites will go next... The House. Home Depot would not refund the products that where opened and infested. Horrible experience from both company's.
Date published: 2025-04-16
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Craig1974 from
Full of trash
Bought 100 bags of the black and had to pick out trash out of every bag, everything from glass to aluminum cans. Most of the trash was what appeared to be plastic bags, like from Walmart. This was ridiculous and very poor quality control.
Date published: 2025-04-13
Rated 1 out of
5
by
boukev from
Used to be great now full of plastic
I used to get this ground cover all the time but this is the second year in a row this product was full of shredded plastic bits: plastic bags, soda bottle caps, and other plastic parts. Whoever is locally supplying the wood products is not screening for garbage before processing.
Date published: 2025-04-13
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Kim824 from
Absolutely horrible product
Put the black mulch down yesterday evening, rained over night and the color is gone! What a waste of money and time!!! So disappointing
Date published: 2025-04-11
Rated 1 out of
5
by
2025 from
Color variance from bag to bag
Bought this mulch today and it is definitely not quality. Color variance from bag to bag is crazy. Some bags are pretty much brown. Even after it dried, it's still an eye sore. Lesson learned...stick with local nursery for mulch.
Date published: 2025-04-10
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Red is not red from
Not true to color
Purchased 12 bags of “red” mulch yesterday and had to borrow a truck to get it. We laid the mulch and it’s brown. The red bags did look different than the brown bags but outside of the bags the mulch is clearly brown. Really disappointed because this is not what we wanted
Date published: 2025-04-06
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Sue Lee from
Very disappointed (and so are my neighbors).
So disappointed Thought it was the pine bark chips. Please bring them back!! Look at your ratings. Your mulch is no better than any other.
Date published: 2025-04-04