I've just felled several mature Leylandii, a sycamore and a spruce in
my father-in-law's garden. The trunks will make good firewood, but the
branches and greenery have been shredded through a chipper and we have
a mountain of the stuff. Is it any good to use as a mulch for the
shrubbery beds?

wrote in message
ps.com...
I've just felled several mature Leylandii, a sycamore and a spruce in
my father-in-law's garden. The trunks will make good firewood, but the
branches and greenery have been shredded through a chipper and we have
a mountain of the stuff. Is it any good to use as a mulch for the
shrubbery beds?

Yes.

--
Chris, West Cork, Ireland.
Festina lente

On Aug 27, 6:21?am, "Cerumen" wrote:
wrote in message

ps.com...

I've just felled several mature Leylandii, a sycamore and a spruce in
my father-in-law's garden. The trunks will make good firewood, but the
branches and greenery have been shredded through a chipper and we have
a mountain of the stuff. Is it any good to use as a mulch for the
shrubbery beds?

Yes.

--
Chris, West Cork, Ireland.
Festina lente

Thanks Chris...in that case we've got mulch for a decade

Les

wrote in message
ps.com...
I've just felled several mature Leylandii, a sycamore and a spruce in
my father-in-law's garden. The trunks will make good firewood, but the
branches and greenery have been shredded through a chipper and we have
a mountain of the stuff. Is it any good to use as a mulch for the
shrubbery beds?

Three Irish unskilled labourers turned up at the lumberjack office
in response to the ad, "Tree fellers wanted"

On 27/8/07 08:28, in article
, "
wrote:

On Aug 27, 6:21?am, "Cerumen" wrote:
wrote in message

ps.com...

I've just felled several mature Leylandii, a sycamore and a spruce in
my father-in-law's garden. The trunks will make good firewood, but the
branches and greenery have been shredded through a chipper and we have
a mountain of the stuff. Is it any good to use as a mulch for the
shrubbery beds?

Yes.

--
Chris, West Cork, Ireland.
Festina lente

Thanks Chris...in that case we've got mulch for a decade

Les

Les, pile the mulch up and let it rot down in a corner somewhere for about 6
weeks, longer if you have no rain. Fresh conifer chippings contain toxins
e.g. tannin. And if you spread bark as fresh mulch it takes nitrogen from
the soil as it decomposes. It gradually returns it once rotting down is
complete but in the meantime it can harm your plants so if used while fresh,
a nitrogen rich fertiliser has to be applied to your plants in the growing
season. Don't forget to make sure the ground is wet before applying any
mulch, otherwise your plants will think they're suffering a drought!
We visited a garden famous for its Camellias and the owner asked Ray why her
shrubs were looking so awful. Her very aged gardener was trying to save on
the weeding and had used bark chippings all round the base of a long avenue
of Camellias and this rotting down process was doing them no good at all. I
may say that the same gardener kept pruning back a Rosa banksiae to keep it
'tidy' and encourage it to flower. Nobody knew why it wouldn't flower
because they didn't know it flowers on old wood!


--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:48:04 -0700, wrote:

I've just felled several mature Leylandii, a sycamore and a spruce in
my father-in-law's garden. The trunks will make good firewood, but the
branches and greenery have been shredded through a chipper and we have
a mountain of the stuff. Is it any good to use as a mulch for the
shrubbery beds?

I stack mine for twelve months and then spread it on two or three
inches thick. What was greenery rots away fairly quickly, but the
woodier bits take a couple of years to disappear.


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net