Wood Chips For Garden Mulch
Let the worms slowly incorporate the wood.
Wood chips for garden mulch. Wood chips in a garden are an essential and often underrated tool. For example, chunkier bark mulch and wood chips tend to be more natural, often coming from recently trimmed trees. So, can you use fresh wood chips as mulch?
All wood mulch can be shipped to you at home. Spread six to eight inches of fresh wood chips around plants and shrubs, since the material settles and breaks down faster than other types of mulch. Leonard perry, extension professor university of vermont if you garden, you may often hear that arborist wood chips should not be used as mulch, which actually is not supported by studies.
Mulching is also used in paths and between pavers to reduce weeds and provide a clean appearance. Some of the benefits include reduced weeding, cooler soil in the summer, water conservation (need less frequent irrigation), and the slow addition of organic matter as organic mulches break down. The wood chips do reduce the need for watering, they are a free/cheap source of mulch, and they make weeding easier.
They can be found in similar numbers beneath bark, wood, gravel and rubber mulch, though fresh wood chips may have the added attraction of providing a food source. There are certain trees that do an excellent job of repelling pests naturally. Despite the fact that bark mulch and wood chips look identical, each one has its own benefits for your garden bed.
I recommend that you use the chips as a mulch on paths between your garden beds or as a mulch around plants on the soil surface. Wood bark is another type of mulch that performs well in the garden. Wood chips, rubber mulch, and rocks or gravel are most often used for aesthetic purposes.
How much do wood mulch cost? Over time, nitrogen levels in the soil increased in the areas where wood chips were used as a mulch. Keep the mulch back a few inches so the tree trunk can breathe!