In article , Pam wrote:

Lorie wrote:

A consideration with mulch, is that many people are allergic to it.
I was not aware of this until I had it put in front of my house,
then had to have it all removed.

There are dozens of different types of mulch. It's rather a stretch to say
that "mulch" can be allergenic without specifying the type, although I have
not heard of any allergic reactions to any that are commonly used in my
area.

To the OP - look for somthing called "play chips" in your area. They are a
very common product here for just this purpose. Wood chips that are often
combined with recycled rubber - long lasting, safe for kids, cushiony and
relatively inexpensive. Runs about $12-15 per cy here for the quantity you
are looking at. I wouldn't worry too much about weed development - foot
traffic should keep them to a minimum except perhaps along the periphery of
the play area. A reasonable alternative may be sand, but watch out for
neighborhood cats :-)

pam - gardengal

Though from my (gardening) point of view your're right, pediatric allergy
specialists would disagree. To people who have such allergies, fungal
spoors that grow in organic mulch can be a serious & even life-threatening
problem, especially when the allergic response is an asthma attack.

There are vastly more allergies caused by plants than by mulch of course,
& large areas barriered & mulched will cause fewer childhood asthma
attacks than would a meadow or a vital garden.

However, even though severe childhood asthma is growing problem that
results in more deaths than most people seem to know about, if activists
want to reverse the increasing asthma trend, they should be working to
remove bazillians of chemicals pollutants from our daily environments &
diet, not plasticizing nature. The human body can generally fight of
allergenic responses to the natural environment pretty easily, but not so
easily if the diet, atsmophere, workplace, home environment, & ever corner
of our daily lives is jam-packed with trace amounts of thousands of
chemicals, the majority of which were never generated for profit without
any other necessity.

But kids with mold AND pollin allergies -- their parents frequently do
have to get rid of just about everything in the yard including organic
mulch & go with pavers & pea gravel, & how sad that'd be for any gardener.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/