Rock vs. Bark

I love willow trees, I think they are just so whimsical and kind of romantic especially in evenings with the light post underneath it. BUT, as it turns out.... they are VERY high maintenance! Ours is kind of overly large, especially for our house, but I have grown to love it, even though it requires monthly trims so that the leaves aren't touching the ground...

not to mention it leave a ridiculous amount of leaves! For this reason, our tree has ruined our bark experience in our front yard. Our bark becomes overcome by dead leaves so, we switched to.....

Rock! Even though the leaves still fall, I think the rock hides them better and plus rock makes it so that we can rake our the leaves. (by we I mean Jonathan mostly.. hehe)