We live in a fairly rainy area in Kentucky. I do believe that the rain does help with the breaking down of the large pine bark nuggets. We have also used pine needles. I don't like straw or hay because it is slippery.This sounds interesting and doable to me. It’s dry here the large majority of the year— if we did go with something like the pine bark, would you recommend hosing it down on occasion to help everything break down?