If you have a garden and you would like it to smell good, then you might want to consider getting cocoa mulch for it, instead of other types of mulch.

Cocoa mulch is also known by several names, among them cocoa bean mulch, cocoa shell mulch, cocoa bean shell mulch, and cocoa bean hull. The shells come off the cocoa bean and are later used in mulch, resulting in specific qualities that some people like.

First of all, cocoa mulch lasts longer than other types of natural mulch (synthetic mulch lasts longer, but it’s not natural). Also, unlike other types of natural mulches, it doesn’t turn gray when exposed to the sun for a long time. Instead, it gets darker, which looks much better with your soil.

Another advantage of cocoa mulch is that it retains moisture better than regular mulch, due to the cocoa bean shells that hold it. In addition, it is a very good insulator for roots, as it lessens the extremes that soil temperature reaches. It accomplishes this by receiving the impact of the sun during the day, thus keeping the soil from becoming too hot, and radiating the heat that it receives during the day to the soil at night, which keeps it from becoming too cold.

Also, like other types of mulch, cocoa mulch breaks down and integrates into the soil, giving it nutritional components that your plants can use.

However, the great distinction of cocoa mulch over other types of mulch is its smell. Cocoa mulch smells like chocolate, as you’d probably have figured out. This smell is very noticeable the first weeks and it tends to fade afterwards. However, it will still retain some of it until it breaks down and becomes part of the soil.

Because of all these qualities, cocoa mulch is appreciated by gardeners and people who keep plants. People who use cocoa mulch use it at 1 inch thickness, which is the recommended thickness for its use. With this thickness, a bag of cocoa mulch usually covers a bit more than 20 square feet. This quantity is big enough for small gardens and even lets some mulch leftover for future uses. Bigger gardens might require more bags, and just some basic math is required (basically dividing the area of the garden by 20) in order to know how much cocoa mulch should be bought.

To end, a word of caution. If you have dogs, then cocoa mulch is not for you. Cocoa is the main ingredient for chocolate, and just like chocolate, it can be poisonous for dogs. On the other hand, if you don’t have dogs and love the aroma of chocolate, then cocoa mulch is the best option for you.