That depends on what you're planting/growing. For trees you can use fresh wood chips and they'll break down gradually. Try to use the same wood as the tree itself (so, pine chips around pine, oak chips around oak, etc.,.) but that's not always necessary. Google information to expand on that idea.
For a vegetable garden, a well broken-down compost is best. Be careful not to add RAW materials (non-composted straw, wood chips, cardboard) around certain plants, or that material will leach the nutrients from the plants and cause a lot of problems for them. You can use grass clippings, and leaves from your yard....because they tend to break down faster, and won't leach nutrients away from your plants as quickly, if at all. It just depends on what you're growing, and what you're mulching with. There's definitely no one easy answer for everything. Gardening is something you'll constantly be learning.
One of the easiest things I can offer as an answer, though, is weed fabric. It's not organic, but it does work well for awhile. The best way to use it is to lay it out first, and cut holes in it to set your plants into the ground through the holes. if your plants are already established, you'll have to cut the cloth to size to fit between the plants, then stake it down, or weight it down with rocks.
If you don't want to spend a lot of money you can use your cut grass and also shredded leaves. The black rubber mulch will have chemicals in it and may cause a problem with heating up with the sun and heat of the day and overheat the soil and plants. Use natural wood chips if you go with that kind and not dyed unless they use natural dyes to avoid chemicals. Stone makes it hard to plant as you have to move an area in order to dig a hole or plant seeds. If you have perennials the stone may cause problems with them trying to come up, esp. with things like hostas that get larger and have to try to come up through the rocks with the new shoots(been there done that and spent a lot of time cutting landscape plastic and moving rocks each spring). Use what you like best in your beds as you want to be happy with the results, not because it is something someone says is the best.
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cedarmulch
That depends on what you're planting/growing. For trees you can use fresh wood chips and they'll break down gradually. Try to use the same wood as the tree itself (so, pine chips around pine, oak chips around oak, etc.,.) but that's not always necessary. Google information to expand on that idea.
For a vegetable garden, a well broken-down compost is best. Be careful not to add RAW materials (non-composted straw, wood chips, cardboard) around certain plants, or that material will leach the nutrients from the plants and cause a lot of problems for them. You can use grass clippings, and leaves from your yard....because they tend to break down faster, and won't leach nutrients away from your plants as quickly, if at all. It just depends on what you're growing, and what you're mulching with. There's definitely no one easy answer for everything. Gardening is something you'll constantly be learning.
One of the easiest things I can offer as an answer, though, is weed fabric. It's not organic, but it does work well for awhile. The best way to use it is to lay it out first, and cut holes in it to set your plants into the ground through the holes. if your plants are already established, you'll have to cut the cloth to size to fit between the plants, then stake it down, or weight it down with rocks.
I like natural pine. It smells wonderful and is good for the soil.
If you don't want to spend a lot of money you can use your cut grass and also shredded leaves. The black rubber mulch will have chemicals in it and may cause a problem with heating up with the sun and heat of the day and overheat the soil and plants. Use natural wood chips if you go with that kind and not dyed unless they use natural dyes to avoid chemicals. Stone makes it hard to plant as you have to move an area in order to dig a hole or plant seeds. If you have perennials the stone may cause problems with them trying to come up, esp. with things like hostas that get larger and have to try to come up through the rocks with the new shoots(been there done that and spent a lot of time cutting landscape plastic and moving rocks each spring). Use what you like best in your beds as you want to be happy with the results, not because it is something someone says is the best.