Here in Citrus county on the lakes we are blessed with the joys of nature and cursed with sugar sand. I did exactly what you are proposing and would have to say UF is dead wrong. We are lucky enough to have access to an unlimited amount of trims from Nelsons with just a phone call. You have to understand that not all wood chips are equal. If you get wood chips from a tree removal company where it is the entire tree that was chipped a large part of the chips will be from the heartwood, the trunk and large primary limbs which are low in nutrients and nitrogen. What you want is what you mentioned, the trims especially from the companies that do the trimming work for the utilities as that is mostly the smaller limbs, twigs and leaves. Those trims are packed with nitrogen and softer which speeds up the decomposition process. Now you can just plop it down and wait and it will eventually rot but it will take a long time. I laid out a 40 foot long by maybe 25 foot wide or so area and with the front end loader dug it down 2 feet or so removing all that pure white fine sugar sand. I refilled the spot with I have no idea how many truck loads of tree trims until it filled the spot and was heaped up 1-2 feet so 3-4 feet deep of chips. I laid the irrigation on both sides on a timer to keep the chips damp which is crucial to getting the chips to break down fast. On top of the chips I added manure and used a tiller to work it all in and kept the area compacted just by running it over. Weekly tills and compaction with some added nitrogen and the "garden" started shrinking in depth as the chips broke down. It is not a over night process, took 18 months I would guess from ground break until I planted the first garden in that spot but the soil is now jet black, I actually had to add sand back to it to get the texture just right. It is a lot of work but on the plus side you will have ZERO nematode problems and the garden will grow anything. I did add 50 lbs of lime to the soil over a month or so right near the end to get the PH just right. If that is too much work you can always use the chips between the rows of your garden or along the edges and incorporate them each year and the soil will get better over time. I would say go for it.....Ph is easily adjusted with lime and not sure what pests they are talking about. Any organics you can add will just improve the soil, feed it, it is a win win.

I'm just surprised you talked him into giving it to you it if was supposed to be reserved for the parks and recreation board. Where you use it depends on how you use it. If you are going to put it directly on top of the ground, then yes, I think stuff will sprout in it. The only way to avoid that would be to put down a layer of something between the ground and the soil/mulch mix. That "something" could be newspapers laid 12-20 pages thick, cardboard, or woven (not perforated) landscape cloth fabric. That layer will keep anything that sprouts in the soil/compost mix from rooting down into the soil underneath up to a point, but you'll still have to pull up whatever sprouts because eventually the roots can work their way down through the newspaper, cardboard or woven cloth landscape fabric. Mulch in and of itself, of course, never means that you'll never have weeds--just that much of the weed activity is suppressed, weeds that sprout in the mulch are easier to pull than those that are in the ground, the ground is kept cooler and the bed has a more finished look. Mulching never stops either. The mulch breaks down and continually replenishes the soil so you keep having to add mulch on top of old mulch. I add mulch to one garden bed or another almost every week during the growing season. I'd go ahead and use the stuff I picked up as mulch immediately because, if you don't, then you run the risk that rain and wind are going to start blowing/washing away the soil in the soil/mulch mix. Wherever you use it, it will keep weeds down somewhat but weeds eventually will sprout and, at that point, you can pull them up before they get big and then go back and get plain wood chips to lay on top of the wood/soil mix. I hope your husband can just relax and tolerate the piles for a while. Creating a nice landscape takes time and all those piles that might seem a little unsightly now are an investment in your yard's future beauty. That's why I call my husband long-suffering...because he tolerates my piles and my experiments and, whenever there is a crisis, he drops what he is doing to shoot a venomous snake, rescue a guinea from the talons of a hawk, cover up tomato plants in the face of an impending frost, repair a fence that a deer has crashed into (but not sailed over!), etc. Sometimes I think non-gardening spouses have to be the most patient people on earth. Of course, he gets to be the "good guy" too, carrying tons of excess produce to work to share with his co-workers, which makes him a "hero" in their eyes. Dawn

first.. i recommend no color ... lt it turn a natural grey ... second .... most landscaper yards that sell soil.. also sell woodchips ... for length of life.. i liked cedar chunks .... bigger the chunk.. the longer it takes to breakdown ... and they smelled good ... third.. cheaper the better ... try to avoid paying for plastic bags ... and btw.. no landscape fabric under the mulch ... if you look around your whole yard.. see if you can use a yard or 2 ... and have it delivered ... ken no clue where you are.. so this is the best i can do .. how many peeps have a HU name ... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=retail+landscape+supplies&t=ffsb&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images

I'm 72 and have a really bad back (DDD at multiple vertebrae sites) that allows only very brief bending. Have broken both femur heads (below knees) in an inside fall, and although both are healed, it is painful to get on my knees for more than 5-10 minutes at a time, even using foam pads. Just this past year, I've decided mulch, fabric, newspaper and cardboard are all short term and I'm always right back to the messy, weedy beds that are even harder and more time-consuming to weed because of the items just listed. My decision this year is I'm done with ALL OF THE ABOVE methods for controlling weeds. I've ripped up the fabric from the one bed I had it in under a primrose jasmine that roots wherever it touches the ground (since dug up & removed). Last year I pulled up the newspaper & cardboard in one small bed. From here on out, I'm using the weedeater exclusively. I'm not a flower gardener and the few varieties I can keep alive are in pots off the ground so I can weedeat around the pots easily. I stick to flowering shrubs and trees instead. Unfortunately my father did NOT pass on his green thumb to me. Rose bushes and flowering shrubs are just easier to weedeat around. I just hold the whacker close to the ground and let it rip up what it will down to bare soil. I prefer the soil look to mulch or rock. I hand pull weeds that get closer to trunks if need be. I go through a lot of WW twine, and that adds up, but spending $$$ on twine is worth it to save me the resulting back & knee pain. Every spring my husband is always whining we need to mulch all the beds, but he just a 'spread it and forget it' kind of guy. It's me that ends up with the aftermath of his decisions. It has been a areal bone of contentions this year in particular. So I'm DONE WITH IT! Need to get out and weedeat it tomorrow, in fact, but it'll be done in an hour or less, as our yard (and beds) are small. :)