Wood Chipping

Wood chips work like magic in your garden. Ask any landscape expert and they'll tell you how valuable organic wood chippings are.

Rochester Trees proudly provides landscape mulching services because we know that you'll get the following benefits:

• Wood chippings are natural
  There are no chemicals in wood chip mulch that would harm your soil and plants like rubber and artificial coloring.
  
  Rubber in particular, is not biodegradable, doesn't absorb water, and adds no nutritional value to the soil.
  
  Organic wood chippings have no dye coloring that fades after a few months, pushing you to put more. If you don't remove the old mulch, mounding will occur and your plants and orchard trees will be prone to choking.
  
  
• Landscape mulch provides a lot of nutrients for your soil
  Those who love gardening know how important fertile soil is. Wood mulch acts as a soil conditioner since it increases the organic material in the soil.
  
  Wood chip mulch is composed of various sizes of wood and might contain dried leaves, needles, and sap. The small particles decompose first, and obviously the larger chips do so later.
  
  This variation in size helps ensure that there is a steady stream of nutrients in your soil for months. Most people re-mulch every year or so.
  
  Organic wood chips are different from your processed, double ground landscape mulch that you buy in bags. Commercial mulch mostly have uniform-sized particles and get absorbed too easily, so you'll need to re-mulch sooner.
  
  So don't mind the big chunky wood chips you might see in there. It's not really about aesthetics, anyway.
  
  You can also spread them on your forest or tree orchard. After a while, you'll see these trees grow a lot better.
  
  
• Wood chippings provide weed abatement
  There will always be some weeds slipping around mulch now and then. But the difference with using wood chips is astounding: weed growth is sparse.
  
  If you're worried about future weeds, just place a 2” or 5cm layer of wood chips on your soil, it will block out the sunlight that weeds require for germination.
  
  If you already have weeds, a 6” or 15cm layer of wood mulch would choke and smother them out. Anything that survives that would have very little root stability and would be easy to pull out.
  
  
• Tree mulch is great at maintaining the moisture levels within your soil
  Wood chips won't block water out when it rains. It lets it trickle through the layer of mulch but hinders evaporation by blocking out the sun.
  
  The little particles act as sponges and will keep your soil moist and cool so you won't have to water as often.
  
  
• Wood chippings help moderate soil temperature regardless of cold or hot weather
  Fluctuations in weather and moisture levels are dangerous to your plants. They might cause winter root injury or frost heave.
  
  This is where your wood chip mulch helps. It blocks out the sun, keeping the soil cooler during the day.
  
  At the same time, this moist layer acts as an insulation or ice barrier at night by retaining heat and preventing it from escaping. Just don't turn the chips during winter period as the heat will escape.
  
  
• Wood chippings effectively prevent soil erosion
  Unprotected soil may experience runoff during heavy rain, exposing delicate plant roots that dry out when exposed.
  
  This water damage is prevented by that layer of wood mulch on your soil, keeping it compact and neat.
  
  
• You're keeping supposedly waste material out of a landfill
  Another thing about using wood mulch is that it goes onto your garden and not into the landfill. You're lessening waste and your plants and trees are happy at the same time!
  

If you're worried that you might be introducing dangerous insects into your garden by using wood chips, don't fret. The grinding that wood chippers do will kill and eliminate all potential insects that might be in the wood. That includes all the insect eggs.

Even if the tree used had a disease on it, that won't affect your garden. Plants don't respond to tree diseases unless they're the same species.

A lot of people say wood chippings cut off nitrogen from the soil, but that only happens on your top soil. Your tree or plant won't be affected as their roots are NOT on the top soil. They get their nitrogen from down deep.

Bottom line, using wood chip mulch is much, much better in the long run.