Why do you think pinestraw takes away from the tropical look? There are pines all over South and Central Florida and it is commonly used. And it does work well, although it needs to be replenished more often than others.

I guess it's just a personal thing. The pinestraw looks more forest-ty to me, instead of tropical-ly. Just my opinion.

I guess you could use the dyed black rubber mulch...its expensive but reputedly works very well. The floor of tropical rainflorests is rich, black earth. However, for the "beach" tropical look, I guess you could use sharp white sand...which would also need replenshing...but would look nice.

It probably has that foresty look because that's what covers the forest floor on the New Orleans north shore and here in Mississippi. The forest in this area are broadleaf bottomlands or pine/oak forest.

I use some pine straw. But for some folks around here. I can see it looking less tropical and more like the vacant lot down the street.

I use pine bark here because it's cheaper than some of the fancier mulches. You can buy a type of it called Silver Dollar or nugget. They are large chunks. More rustic and less sophisticated looking, but they don't break down as fast. My tropical bed has pine fines at the moment as I didn't want to use the chunks there.

I don t know what to suggest, because I don t live in that area.

I DO understand how you don t like using pine stuff, I don t think it would look or smell tropical at all.

Down here they (pines) were extensively planted as imported exotics years ago. I think they just look weird. I guess it s all relative to where you are, the people down here, think they re just SO EXOTIC, where as I being from Kansas originally, still think a Coconut Palm is exotic.

Mulches seem to be relative as well, it just depends on what you can get for a decent price, and that seems to always DEPEND on where you are located.

Good luck!

shredded wood. As it happens we had our pines taken out and we used the shredded wood from the stump grinding. Not bad, and once the ground covers cover the mulch, you can't see it anyway

what about cypress mulch?

sea ya
tami