ᐅ Bark mulch, pine bark, or wood chips?

Hello everyone!
What do you use under your hedges, in your front gardens, in your flower beds, etc.?

Are there any advantages or disadvantages to the options you use?

I’m looking forward to hearing about your experiences!

Soil – occasionally remove weeds, and that’s it.

Differences
Gravel, bark mulch, wood chips, grass clippings
Plants have different needs and do not tolerate everything.
Grass clippings attract slugs.
Mulch needs to be applied thickly enough to help against weeds. I still have to pull some.

So far, we have only used bark mulch under the hedge plants/shrubs. The reason is purely practical: I can get it from the gravel plant around the corner. I haven’t really considered the pros and cons yet – so far, everything is (still?) growing great.

In the long term, this will be replaced by some kind of ground cover plants anyway.

Between the new hedge, bark mulch was applied to help retain moisture – luckily, it has since been overgrown. Since we have a semi-natural mixed hedge, there is naturally also ground cover beneath it, so no additional mulch is needed. All pruning waste, branches, and hay are placed underneath, which then slowly decomposes.

In the front garden, I never planted anything special; instead, I scattered a loose wildflower seed mix between the perennials on the bare soil, just enough to cover the ground. Anything I don’t like gets pulled out, and that’s that.

Except for the gravel, every type of mulch gets turned over and spread around by the birds, especially wood chips. There is life underneath.