colored mulch?

Here at our shop, we recyle everthing we bring in into mulch. A couple of years ago we did colorize a couple thousand yards. It was a red color and the dye used is not harmfull to people or plants. We hired a guy to do it . He hadn a large machine towed by a semi tractor. We also had to rent a huge water tank and pump. Colorizing requires alot of water.
 
ahhhh colored mulch. i hate it. how much more unnatural can we make a landscape? my background was in horticulture and nursery work and people always wanted that red colored mulch. i just read in a supplier catolog you can now purchase brown dye to color old mulch with instead of putting down new mulch.hmmm, and one of the purposes of mulch is to mimic the duff layer of a forest by providing natural nutrients to an urban tree.as far as i know it is a protein dye and has no adverse effect on people or plants. similar to the popular scotch pine christmas tree, naturally yellowish at christmas time, yet dyed green to make the christmas tree money.
 
Lesco had mulch coloring available 15 years ago back when I had a landscaping business. Just expensive food coloring, it was nothing I ever bought. Application was with a sprayer.
I agree with Chad. I think it's ugly. But I'm not a yuppy driving a Beemer down the drive of my $3M mansion waving at the lawn guy as I click the button for my electronic security gate either. For some reason the people who never touch mulch think the colored stuff is pretty.
 
that is a good point brian, we are not selling to other arborists most of time. and whatever it takes to talk the customer in to buying what is best for their trees (composted mulch, colorized or not is what I want to sell them even if it is tacky) It is hard to sell them something that does not come out of a bottle and have lots of marketing behind it anyway, do you guys find this to be true? The best customers are the ones that can afford to pay someone to obtain their objective instead of just shopping for the best price period.
 
we sometimes sell our chips as mulch our clients. this is a good idea as long as there is not a diseaded tree chipped into our batch of mulch. otherwise, what do you guys do with your mulch? if we cannot sell it or give it away it goes to the dump. i always hate to see a good load of quality chips like oak go to the city dump.
 
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