Hi Steve,
I'm going into the second year of using fresh wood chips (shreddings
really) as mulch. Mine are mixed, there is some pine in it, along with
a lot of lime (Tilia) and hard woods. My experience last year was
extremely positive although some warned it was a bad idea.
It's worth noting that most of my trees are ornamentals (largely maples)
which don't like a lot of nitrogen anyway, but there was certainly very
good fruit crops also last year by and large.
Check out this link:
http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%2...les/index.html
The pdf called "Arborist Wood Chips" addresses many concerns, including
I think both the "acidifying" and "nitrogen leaching" arguments. Though
others will of course disagree (as Jake did) and honestly I don't agree
with everything Dr. Chalker writes either.
-E
On 03/20/2012 03:19 PM, shazzbat wrote:
The tree fellers are busy across the road, at long last cutting down a row
of leylandii which this morning were about 10 feet taller than the houses.
They are shredding the branches into a truck, and I'm sure if I asked them
they'd let me have a load. I'm wondering about their suitability as a mulch
for the fruit bushes on the allotment to keep the weeds down. Anybody done
this, and is there a down side? OK, there's always a down side, what's the
down side here?
Steve