Field Guide · Soil & compost · 7 min read

Wood Chips in the Garden, Done Right

Free by the truckload, and the best thing that ever happened to our paths and orchard, as long as they stay on the surface.

Written on the farm by Nathan Story · Story Thyme Farms, Missouri · Updated

Story Thyme Farms · Bench cardAny

Wood chips, done right

Arborist wood chips: where they work and where they do not

DifficultyWheelbarrow work
Depth3–4" beds, 6" paths
Rule oneOn top, never tilled in
SourceArborist loads, free
1Getting themAsk the tree crew for their chips
2The one ruleAlways on the surface, never mixed in
3Where to use themPaths, orchards and perennials, but not the carrot bed
4Giving them timeLet the fungi finish the job
Materials needed · Wheelbarrow · Mulch fork · Steel rake
Written on the farm · Missouristorythymefarms.com/guides/wood-chips-in-the-garden

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The long version

Watercolor plate of a wheelbarrow of wood chips with fungal threads
Arborist wood chips: where they work and where they do not · field plate

Arborist wood chips, the mix of chipped leaves and branches that tree crews produce, are the cheapest soil-building material there is, and usually free if you ask. They hold moisture like a sponge, feed fungi for years, and stop weeds. Nearly every bad story about wood chips comes down to one mistake: mixing them into the soil instead of laying them on top.

  1. Step 1 · Getting them

    Ask the tree crew for their chips

    Watercolour plate of a truckload of fresh arborist wood chips tipped in a heap on a driveway, chipper truck suggested behind

    Tree crews have to pay to dump their chips, so letting them unload in your driveway saves them a trip. Ask a crew working nearby, or sign up with a chip-drop service, and expect the entire load, which is five to fifteen cubic yards, to arrive at once. Fresh chips with shredded leaves mixed in are the best kind, because they carry more nutrients and break down faster.

  2. Step 2 · The one rule

    Always on the surface, never mixed in

    Watercolour plate of a cross-section comparison showing wood chips laid on the surface with roots healthy beneath, beside chips tilled in with a starved root zone

    The warning about wood chips stealing nitrogen is half true. Wood buried in soil does take nitrogen from the whole root zone while it rots, but wood lying on the surface only borrows a little, right at the point where it meets the soil. So chips always go on top, and the soil underneath actually gains nitrogen over the years as the fungal layer works downward. Spread them on the surface, leave them alone, and top them up each year.

  3. Step 3 · Where to use them

    Paths, orchards and perennials, but not the carrot bed

    Watercolour plate of wood chips spread on garden paths and under trees and berry bushes, with a clean unchipped vegetable bed of carrots beside

    Chips work best where the plants are woody and long-lived. Use three to four inches under trees and berry bushes, and six inches on garden paths, where they end muddy conditions for good. Keep them out of annual vegetable beds, where repeated sowing mixes them into the soil, and use straw or leaves there instead. Always pull chips a hand's width away from trunks and stems.

  4. Step 4 · Giving them time

    Let the fungi finish the job

    Watercolour plate of the underside of a two-year-old wood chip layer laced with white fungal mycelium over black crumbly soil

    By the second year, white fungal threads run through the bottom of the chip layer, and underneath it you will find black, crumbly, worm-worked soil that holds about a week's more moisture than the bare ground it replaced. A pile of chips that has sat for two years is essentially finished compost, and that material can go anywhere, including the vegetable beds.

Materials needed
WheelbarrowMulch forkSteel rake

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Questions we actually get

Will fresh chips from diseased or walnut trees hurt my garden?
Chipped and surface-applied, almost never. Juglone from walnut chips breaks down within weeks in an aerated pile, and tree diseases rarely jump from mulch to vegetables. If it worries you, let the suspect load sit a couple of months first.
Do wood chips attract termites?
Termites eat solid buried wood, not a loose airy mulch that dries at the surface. Standard practice still applies: keep any mulch a foot off the house foundation and below siding level.
Colored bagged mulch versus arborist chips?
Dyed mulch is ground pallet wood in costume, all carbon, no leaf, no nutrition. Arborist chips are whole-tree food for the soil and cost nothing. The ugly free pile wins on every measure but tidiness, and it composts into tidiness.