I find that even mushroom compost seems to have more and more wood chips in it. Another name for good topsoil is Farmers Topsoil. I used to have forty acres of land in suburbia which I wanted to develop. I had a John Deer 450 loader which I used to scrape off top topsoil at the approach to what would be the plan. There were two piles, one nothing but black topsoil, about 20 yards. The other black topsoil mixed with the clay underneath it; about 40 yards. I finally just sold the two lots and the remaining parcel to someone who knew what they were doing, but my attorney told me I still owned the topsoil. I tried to sell it and no one would even look at it. If it's not screened they didn't want it. There were no stones and only an occasional root. Just like you get when you buy "topsoil", mushroom compost, or bark, from these same sellers. The "topsoil" they sell is clay mixed with mushroom compost which you can do yourself. Find composted manure with out wood chips in it. If you own or rent a pickup and haul one of these products and unload it. You can then get the other product and shovel it into a wheelbarrow, out of the truck, 4, 5, or 6, shovel fulls of clay and then one of the wood chip free mushroom compost from the pile next to the pickup. if you can find sand with very small (TINY) river rock in it you could also add some of that in. There are lots of articles on determining what percentages of each you should see in a glass bottle when determining what your loam is made up of.

It is not the dye in dyed mulch that is of concern. Most of that is plant based and perfectly safe to use in the garden. What IS of concern is the wood used in dyed mulch. It is recycled scrap lumber - shipping crates and pallets, construction debris and similar "junk" wood, often contaminated with petroleum and other potentially toxic chemicals. And the fact that dyed mulch just looks so very unnatural. Mulch should be completely unobtrusive, not the most obvious feature in the landscape! Matching it to house color is never a consideration. There is also completely natural black or nearly black mulches available, usually compost based. This is what I use myself and also in clients' gardens - very dark, finely textured and richly organic.

i bought a large capacity double wheel wheelbarrow for my slight hills ... it worked great for wood chips and light material ... almost killed myself filling it with sand once ... lol ... so i learned to half fill it with heavy material ... and both kids fit in it when they were younger .. the plastic bin was a bit flexy with dense material ... but again... i couldnt fill it up anyway ... so it didnt matter all that much i got many loads of fresh free wood chips.. probably mentioned it above ... quality varied.. but the key word remained .. FREE ... i also got a few bad batches of compost .. and that wasnt free ... ken https://duckduckgo.com/?q=arge+capacity+double+wheel+wheelbarrow&atb=v301-6__&iax=images&ia=images

i second Littlebig’s suggestions. Also, choose the mulch carefully. You want something highly textured. I use arborists’ chips which typically include a mix of branches and leaves along with wood chips. It all sort of locks together.