Landscaping & Garden Calculators

Tons, yards and bags

Stone is usually priced by the ton at quarries and by the cubic yard at landscape yards; mulch is sold by the yard in bulk or in 1.5–3 cu ft bags. A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet — 54 half-cubic-foot gravel bags or 13.5 two-cubic-foot mulch bags — so bulk delivery quickly becomes the cheaper option for anything bigger than a small bed.

Depth is the number to get right

For both stone and mulch, depth drives the order more than area does. Two inches of decorative gravel or mulch is plenty for ground cover; 4 in of compacted base is typical under patios; new driveways are often 8–12 in in layers. The gravel calculator and mulch calculator both include common depth presets.

Fix drainage first

If water pools in beds or against the foundation, a French drain is usually the first job. The French drain calculator subtracts the pipe from the trench volume and sizes the filter fabric.

How heavy is a yard of stone?

Transportation departments estimate loose gravel and crushed stone at about 1.4 tons per cubic yard (2,800 lb), and published charts put most stone, pea gravel and dry sand between roughly 2,500 and 2,800 lb per yard. Two practical consequences: a quote “per ton” and a quote “per yard” differ by about 40%, so convert before comparing prices; and a single cubic yard of stone outweighs the rated payload of many pickups. If you’re hauling it yourself, check the payload figure on your truck’s door-jamb sticker first.

How far a cubic yard goes

One cubic yard spread evenly covers 324 sq ft at 1 in deep. Divide 324 by the depth in inches to get the coverage at any depth:

Mulch: more is not better

University extension guidance is that fine-textured wood and bark mulches should be no more than 2–3 in deep, because thicker layers can starve roots of air. Keep mulch a few inches back from the stems of shrubs and the trunks of trees. If an old layer is still in place, measure what is there and only top it up to the target depth — the mulch calculator lets you enter any depth.

Sand: sandboxes, leveling beds and fill

Sand is measured like any bulk material, but the use changes the depth and the grade you buy. A sandbox takes washed play sand 4–8 in deep, a leveling bed is about 1 in of coarse concrete sand, and compacted fill needs about a quarter more loose sand than its finished volume. Dry sand weighs about 2,750 lb per cubic yard and wet sand about 3,300. A 50 lb bag holds about ½ cu ft, so a 6 × 6 ft box 6 in deep takes 36 bags. The sand calculator handles all three uses, in rectangles or circles.

Topsoil and raised beds

Topsoil is measured the same way as mulch, area × depth, but the depths are bigger. Penn State Extension says a new lawn typically needs at least 4–6 in of settled topsoil, and Illinois and Missouri Extension recommend raised beds at least 6–12 in deep. That adds up fast: one 4 × 8 ft bed 12 in deep holds 32 cu ft, about 1.2 cubic yards. The topsoil calculator gives cubic yards, tons and bag counts, and a raised-bed mode splits the volume into an example topsoil, compost and soilless-mix blend.