How many bags of mulch are in a cubic yard?

This is the conversion to have in your head at the garden center when a guide or a landscaper says "you need two yards." Two yards of mulch is 27 bags of 2 cu ft, exactly, because the half-bag from each yard adds up to a whole one.

What to know about bags of mulch in a yard

Check the bag, not the brand. Most bagged wood mulch in the US is sold in 2 cu ft bags, but colored and premium mulches also come in 1.5 and 3 cu ft sizes, and rubber mulch often in bags under 1 cu ft, which takes more than thirty bags to make a yard. The volume is printed on the front; the table below covers each size.

A yard of mulch covers about 108 square feet at 3 inches deep, so 14 bags of 2 cu ft is roughly one 10 × 10 bed: see How much mulch for a 10×10 area. At 2 inches the same bags stretch to about 160 square feet.

Bags and bulk don’t match to the shovelful. Bagged mulch is compressed and fluffs up a little when you break it open; a bulk yard settles after the first rain. Either way, the difference is small next to how unevenly most beds get spread.

Whether 14 bags beats one bulk yard depends on your local bag price, the bulk price and the delivery fee; the bagged vs bulk mulch guide shows how to work out the break-even. Filling beds with soil instead of mulch? The same 27 cubic feet nearly fills one 4×8 raised bed, and How many cubic yards of dirt for a 10×10 area, 4 inches deep shows the yardage math from the other end.