Wood chipper making lots of chips. What to do with them?

[plowhog]

I just had 10 Black Oaks and 1 Pin Oak tree trimmed. These tree are hundreds of years old, about 125ft high with enormous limbs, some up to 60" diameter. A tree crew with a "spider lift" spent a full week here doing it.

Now, I am chipping up LOTS and LOTS of branches and limbs. (Saving larger ones for firewood.) And generating truckloads of chips.

So far I am putting them down on dirt driveways, in front of my storage building on the dirt, and will probably put some in planters also. Are there other good uses for wood chips?

My tree crew said if I want chips-- they can deliver truckloads of the stuff they generate at other jobs. And, if I got their chips from off-site, could I be accidentally bringing in unwanted diseases or pests along for the ride?

 

[ericm979]

Yes you could get diseases from other sites. For example sudden oak death. It started in our area and it's killed a lot of our tan oaks. I don't give away firewood from the dead tan oaks I cut down.

I've been putting chips on my dirt roads and the wife's garden areas.

 

[RalphVa]

Best mulch in the world is the stuff from the tree people. It has both tree and limb chips plus the upper greenery. I had another load delivered from a local tree outfit a couple weeks ago. It really looks good: lots of greenery in it. Think I'll have to be careful in putting it around some stuff, as it could "cook".

In general, you can use the wood chips around any horticulture item, e.g. trees, flowers, shrubs, but not in your veggie garden. It's a bit too woody for the veggie. Been there done wrong.

I chip and shred small tree parts a lot during the winter. I put it all together with about 100 bags (not THE bags) of leaves I collect from the silly town people who just leave this "gold" at the curb. I use this on my veggie garden and on my raspberry canes. My pile from last winter was just a small pile of pure compost before I recently started chipping new stuff and dumping it onto the small compost pile. I've about 100 bags of leaves sitting there to be shredded up and added to it. When I finish, I'll give it all a toss with my FEL.

About every 3 or 4 months, I fill up an old garage can full of (not meat) kitchen material and then use my FEL to lift it atop the pile that I scraped the top off of, dump it and then toss it with the FEL. I used to dump the kitchen stuff into holes I made into the sides of the pile, but the animals started digging it out. It was then I started making use of an old (about 1970) plastic garbage can from NJ to hole the stuff.

Ralph

 

[RalphVa]

Yes you could get diseases from other sites. For example sudden oak death. It started in our area and it's killed a lot of our tan oaks. I don't give away firewood from the dead tan oaks I cut down.

I've been putting chips on my dirt roads and the wife's garden areas.

We've gobs of junk piles from the big creek overflow on May 30 this year. This winter, my wife says she'll help me to chip and to shred it up. I've some low spots on my trails that I'll dump it on. A lot of it will have black walnut in it. It has juglione in it, which is not good to use in your compost/mulch.

Lots of bowed over trees. If we finish with the piles, I may look at cutting off the tops of those bowed trees to try to rescue some of them. That materiel can be put into the FEL and toted up top to put onto my compost/mulch pile. They're not black walnut. The back walnuts did not bow. They broke: one or two quite large trees.

Ralph

 

[ovrszd]

In my country I'd never consider using chips to cover a trail. Horrible idea here. Would hold moisture and create a soft spot.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I got a 15" PTO chipper last year. Put the stuff on the vegi garden to control weeds last year with good results. Removed most of the chips, did not re-apply and this year the garden was a disaster.

I really like the chips in wet spots on roadways. I have not used them on major slopes though thinking they may wash away.

 

[oosik]

Can you get disease - yes. Dutch elm disease - and MANY others. And then there may be those who chip their pine trees that die of pine bark beetle. You don't want those chips. Chipping is no guarantee that all the larva will be destroyed. Trees that die from or are infested with pine bark beetle - burn.

I've tried pine chips in my driveway. Makes the driveway quiet, cuts down on dust - washes off the driveway during a heavy rain, will not compact, easily bladed off the driveway when clearing snow.

My son has used a couple pickup loads around his shrubs. Of course, he's in the city where thing have to look nice.

Out here - I point the discharge chute down wind and let them fall where they may. They will normally be completely gone in three to five years.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Most people want colored chips it seems. Producing those is not a cheap small scale endeavor.

 

[sixdogs]

If from cedars of mine I use as mulch around plantings and trees. Anything else gets spread out to dry and then burned. You have to keep flipping the pile to get air in.

It seems odd that a mountain of brush becomes a small pile of chips and then reduces to a mere bucket of ask.