Get rid of the bark, replace it with pine straw, and you won't have that problem.

Harper

He/she will still have problems as long as there is landscape fabric. Some are more slick than others, and some people even install it so that the slick side is up. Unfortunately, I would say 'get rid of the landscape fabric' to solve your problem, but I'll be you don't want to do that. This is, unfortunately, one of the several reasons why this stuff has gone out of favor with professionals and homeowners alike.

Based on past experience, you will have to put some edging to keep the bark from washing all over the place. Even then, you may find that your mulch continues to pool up at the edging and might still spill over. Sorry, but I can't think of any other helpful solutions for what used to be a universal problem when landscape fabric was widely used. Changing to pine straw might improve the situation a little bit, but not much.

Hardwood mulch will wash away with LOTS of rain, but it will not float as pine does. I agree about the landscape fabric. Replace it with 10 layers of newspaper, then 4 inches of shredded hardwood mulch, and you will improve soil, plant health, and appearance.

Another way is to replace the landscape fabric and mulch with groundcovers. In the long run it is a whole lot cheaper to buy several flats than to replenish with mulch every year (and a lot less energy than to clean up the rain-washed-down piles).

Nancy the nancedar

If you haven't found out yet how to keep the mulch in the bed, I'll tell you. You need to get a flat headed edging spade and "outline" the perimeter of your beds with the spade by digging a trench straight down about 4" all the way around. Then from inside the bed 'slice' into the trench at about a 45 degree angle from about 4"~5" from the "outline". This will make a nice sloped type of trench. Fill your beds with mulch purposely not filling the trench. As you lighting rake the mulch around let some of it settle down towards and in the trench. Just do not go "fill" the trench with mulch. Enough will settle in it as you spread the rest around. Water your beds and you will see that any 'run off' or mulch that usually went into your yard, will now miraculously stay in the bed.

Hope this hepls. Knowledge late is better than never knowing.

I agree about getting rid of the fabric. In the long run, the mulch will compost and weeds will grow in it with roots going down through the fabric. It's a pain! I do the newspaper layers covered with mulch and it works. There won't be many weeds and the ones that do appear are easy to pull.

I even used landscape fabric under rocks around my air conditioning units to keep out weeds and the weeds came through. The stuff is useless.

You don't have to use edging, but it helps. We put in some of the rubber edging and it was pretty easy to use. We still get some overspill, but not as much. The larger chunks of pine bark don't spill or float as much as the mini-nuggets (but the mini-nuggets do look nice!).

I don't like pine straw because it breaks down faster and if you are in the beds a lot, it gets all over your feet and tracks into the house. I only have it in sloped areas.

Put pine straw over the bark and it will keep it in place.

Yes, put pine straw over the bark but remove the landscape fabric first. If you still have a problem then try some black plastic mesh netting to hold the bark and straw in place.

I had that problem too in flat beds so I just put an 8" collar of pine straw and it's worked perfectly. My bark mulch used to float clear off and all over the sidewalk and driveway during hard rains.
Try the collar method. I think your biggest problem is that landscape fabric. Water doesn't go through it fast enough so it makes the bark float. That Mulchhold might work to keep mulch from blowing away but mulch on top of landscape fabric..stuck together with Mulchhold might just raft off the fabric. Might be worth a try though.

Bark is used here in England but with the same problems however another popular solution is weed control fabric with stone chippings solves most problems of material migrating.

Yes