The next time you pass an arborist removing trees next to a power line, you may be looking at your future garden soil.
When arborists cut down trees or branches and turn them into wood chips, they may have to pay to dispose of them. Gardeners in Maine are using these chips, which they increasingly receive for free, to improve the health of their soil and the quality of their landscape.
The easiest way to get “tree care chips” delivered is probably through ChipDrop, a website for tree care companies and gardeners. You can sign up, make a voluntary donation to cover the cost of delivery, and wait for the chips to become available.
The company warns that it’s not for everyone. In social media posts, some Maine users praised the service, while others said they’d waited years for it. When a delivery arrives, you may find a large amount of wood chips on your driveway without warning. And it may not be the cleanest or finest wood chips, either.
But it’s free.
Some Maine users had more success when they checked the box online saying they agreed to accept smaller logs in the wood chips and offered to pay $20 to cover delivery costs.
Others call tree service companies directly or ask a local arborist. Some municipalities also offer wood chips and yard waste as mulch for free or at a reduced price.
Scott Weeks, owner of the Bangor tree service Dirty Work Co., doesn’t just deliver wood chips to people who ask for them. He wants his customers who have trees cut down or trimmed to leave the tree trimmings on their property and use them to plant vegetable gardens in their yards, rather than throwing them into the city’s trash stream.
Most customers have wanted wood chips to fill depressions in their gardens or around a swing set. Weeks recommends instead that they use the tree debris in a method called Hugelkultur, which involves filling a raised hill with wood scraps, wood chips, manure and topsoil.
The method saves water, regulates water runoff and creates fertile soil. Weeks believes so much in the potential of wood waste that he is going back to school to focus his business on consulting on these methods.
Hugelkultur takes some getting used to, but wood chips are also a popular choice among no-till gardeners to cover paths, walkways and other areas where you don’t want weeds to grow or the soil to dry out.
The chips will decompose over time and may require a new coat once or twice per season.
It’s best to avoid incorporating it into your planting soil or using it on vegetable plants. Nitrogen in the soil can be “tied up” as the wood chips begin to rot and taken away from your plants if you apply it directly to your garden beds.
However, according to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, arborist wood chips work well as mulch for trees, shrubs, raspberries and cultivated blueberries.
Even outside your garden, you can use wood chips to prevent erosion and add more organic matter to the soil on your property.
According to the extension, the wood chips can also be a carbon source for a compost heap.
Black walnut tree ingredients have been found to contain chemicals that inhibit plant growth, but softwoods like the pine trees popular in Maine are a safe choice.
Some gardeners in Maine are particularly fond of ramial chips, made from the small twigs of hardwood trees. These have a higher concentration of nutrients, decompose more quickly, and promote the growth of the fungal networks that contribute to soil health.
Wood waste is a natural resource that helps landowners grow their own food and ensure security, Weeks said.
“I think this is the future,” he said.
