If you are looking for a practical, sustainable material for gardening or landscaping, consider free wood chips over traditional mulch. Wood chips come from the interior of trees.
Typically, wood chipping services make wood chips by cutting big chunks of wood from branches, trees, stumps, or roots into small chips using a wood chipper.
Discover several ways to use wood chips besides traditional mulch, including preventing soil erosion, reducing weeds, and creating rustic garden pathways.
Best Ways to Use Free Wood Chips
If you have access to free wood chips, it is an excellent idea to use them in your garden and landscaping plans. You can use wood chips in different ways, such as mulching your garden, creating walkways, reducing weeds, and preventing soil erosion.
Mulch your garden
Wood chips and mulch are not the same; however, wood chips can serve as a type of mulch for your garden. The difference between mulch and chips is that mulch refers to a layer of material that sits over the soil in your garden. You can use wood chips as mulch for perennials, trees, and shrubs because these plants work well with the composition and size of wood chips.
Landscape with wood chips
You can use wood chips from a landscape supply store or a free source to create paths or sidewalks in your garden. Woods chips give a more natural look than pea gravel and keep these walkways uniform in size.
Reducing the presence of weeds
Woods chips combined with grass clippings or pine needles can help prevent weeds from growing. A layer that’s a few inches thick stops light and nutrients from reaching the weed’s roots, keeping them out of your garden.
Prevent soil erosion
Wood chips are an excellent way to prevent soil erosion in areas of your yard. The wood chips’ surface blocks wind and rain, keeping your top layer of soil in place. This stops soil from washing away and maintains your landscaping design.
When Not to Use Wood Chips
Although the U.S. Product Consumer Safety Commission states that wood chips are approved for playground surfaces, there are better options.Playground safety regulations require at least 12 inches of wood chips to prevent injuries from falls. Finding enough cubic yards of free wood chips can be challenging to create a safe playground surface.
If you are considering wood chips for a playground, opt for playground wood chips instead. Playground wood is an engineered wood fiber explicitly made for this use.
How to Find Free Wood Chips
You can typically find free wood chips through your local tree care services provider. Tree companies that perform tree services like trimming and removal cut these larger pieces of wood down into chips for later use.
Although some companies may put up their wood chips for sale, it is worth contacting your local tree removal company to ask if they have free wood chips available.
Free Wood Chips in Atlanta
If you are looking for free wood chips near me in the Atlanta metro area, contact a local residential tree service provider like PayLess Tree Services Division.
As part of our pledge for sustainability, we give away all our wood chips for free. Just give us a call, and if we have what you need, we’ll bring the wood chips to your home, helping you save money and time.
Contact PayLess Tree Services Division at (678) 679-8296 for more information or to schedule a wood chip drop-off.