Wood Chips ?? What do they do ??

10 years ago

I'm looking at Walmart, Tim Hortons ,and lots of yards that have wood chips on top of the flower beds. They dont have weeds growing up all over the place,like I have without the wood chips.. What I'm wondering is do you lay a poly sheet down first , or does the wood chips stop weeds on its own?? If its the poly , what kind is best? black or clear? What about drainage rock instead of wood chips? It wont blow away.. If I put this around spruce trees which get their water from the drip line , will I have to make special preparations ?
Thanks , Neil

Comments (4)

ianna
10 years ago
You are referring to what is called mulch, cedar or pine bark mulches to be exact. It doesn't matter what colour works best, choose the colour you'd prefer. Mulch works to maintain moisture, keep temperatures steady and also to suppress weeds. you'll have to use aged wood chips to do this otherwise fresh ones can rob the ground of nitrogen which is detrimental to plants.

However mulches (whether wood or stones) will not be able to suppress weeds for too long. It can kill weeds beneath it and prevent weed seeds from growing, but it cannot prevent new weed seeds from growing on top of it. The way to tackle any new growth is simply to disturb mulch with a rake or hoe when the weeds are young and usually this is enough to kill off new weeds. - but to make a point on how persistent weeds can be, a dandelion for example will find a way to grow in aspalt.

The way to apply the mulch is to put down weed cloth which is usually black and then top with the mulch. Don't use a poly sheet which is shiny and not porous. You can get weed cloths at hardware stores. Weed cloths need to be porous so the plant can still receive water.

Eventually though weed cloths can deteriorate and require replacement. Hope this helps..
SouthCountryGuy Zone 4b-5 SE BC
10 years ago
It does everything ianna but keeping moisture in and weeds down is HUGE! I prefer pine bark fines and no landscape fabric. Reason for this is that with the landscape fabric it is a lot harder to add things to your soil. As well I want the real fine bark to break down (compost) to add tilth and organic matter to my soil. The places you mention usually use landscape fabric and cedar mulch to keep it as low maintenance as possible.

SCG
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After many years of graduate school followed by teaching university environmental science courses I'm pretty comfortable in my understanding of how wood in the forest gets digested, and my ability to interpret observations in the field. What we are talking about here are fresh wood chips coated in wet clay if they are dug directly into the clay soil. This will seal off a good proportion of the surface area of the wood to microbial action and microbial spread. If composted a bit first the situation will be reversed and the clay lumps can get coated in fine particulates and humics, and fungal threads will be able to grow around the clay in a more or less contiguous organic environment rather than be blocked by walls of clay plaster. If you are refering to deep incorporation of organic matter down into the soil... if worms etc could break up clay through the addition of organic matter on the surface you would not see the fromation or persistance of the natural soil horizons we are dealing with (the clay fragipan in the B horizon). I would not have a clay problem because I have had grass growing on my lawn for 42 years since the house was built. This means not only 42 years of root penetration and worm activity on decaying roots, but also 42 years of grass clippings from a mulching mower. Still, there is a claypan nine inches below the surface. The yard is home to a good population of night crawlers. Sure the top nine inches is wonderfully mixed topsoil (due to worms and moles), but that doesn't do my tomatoes any good once that top nine inches dries out at the end of June and the clay blocks deep root penetration to subsurface water. Surrounding the yard is a secondary growth forest that is over thirty years old. Plenty of time for soil life to mix decaying organic material into the clay...it just hasn't happened. And here is what I have observed with brush piles sitting atop clay soil for 20 years (total decay of the brush)... a couple of inches of rich black compost over top of clay (the same with old manure piles). I have cut and developed garden plots out of both the yard and the wilderness areas. This includes deep digging down to 2-3 feet by hand to break up the clay and mix in organic matter so I am intimately aware of the soil structure, root pentration and wildlife penetration. Worms do not live in the clay layer other than for a few permanent vertical burrows, and plants do not put roots down into the clay to a great extent. In a forest, subsurface clay is broken up by penetration and decay of large woody tree roots (over centuries), not from branch and leaf litter. Invertebrate activity will mix surface material into the nooks and crannies left by decaying roots. Most tree roots are on the surface in the nutrient rich layer, with very few deep verticals, which is one reason it takes so long for deep rich soil to form. Darwin's estimates of soil turnover by earthworms as so many tonnes of soil per acre per year (in an English cultivated and/or garden setting) seems impressive until you convert it to inches, which turns out to be something like 1/8 inch of soil brought to the surface each year, so over 8 years you could get an inch of soil covering your wood chips, but even this isn't going to happen in worm depauperate clay.
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ianna
10 years ago
Hi, Some do enjoy just layering down mulch direct to the ground. I do prefer though to lay down a weed cloth which helps to prevent some weed seeds from reaching the earth beneath.-- However dandelions can be very persistent.

There's a good point though made regarding moisture. the problem with mulch is that it prevents light rain from reaching the roots of the plants. the way around this is to make sure you make space just around the plant and to water very deeply once or twice a week. Once watered, the mulch will keep the plant moistened for longer periods.

Oh,, and just because you've put down mulch, doesn't mean you cannot add new soil because you can.. you just need to move the mulch aside and topdress your soil. It will make for a healthy plants.
SouthCountryGuy Zone 4b-5 SE BC
10 years ago
I agree, dandelions can be very persistent. I wasn't very clear in my other post about why I choose to use bark fines and weed control. The fines form more of a mat not letting weed seeds to get to the ground. The coarser the mulch the more likely seeds can fall between mulch pieces and get to earth. A common problem people have is not putting enough mulch down. The coarser the mulch the thicker it needs to be. With fines you can get away with 2-3" really coarse stuff your going to want 5-6". The few weed seeds that do germinate are extremely easy to pull with methods described by ianna. If you use a landscape fabric you can use a lot less mulch. Just be sure to use enough so the suns rays can't get to the fabric. UV rays are what breaks landscape fabric down. BTW this isn't based on my experience it came from a landscaping buddy. Following his advice on using fines I water less than half the amount the bed that does have mulch. I also have maybe spent a whopping ten minutes weeding opposed to hours a week in the other.

Wood Chips ?? What do they do ??

Comments (4)

ianna

SouthCountryGuy Zone 4b-5 SE BC

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ianna

SouthCountryGuy Zone 4b-5 SE BC

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