Next time you pass an arborist clearing trees from a power line, you might be looking at your future garden soil.
When arborists take down trees or branches and turn them into wood chips, they may have to pay to dispose of them. Maine gardeners are using those chips, which they can increasingly get for free, to improve their soil health and landscape quality.
The simplest option for getting “arborist chips” delivered might be ChipDrop, a site for both tree companies and gardeners. You can sign up, pay an optional donation to cover delivery costs and wait for chips when they become available.
It isn’t for everyone, the company warns. On social media posts, some Maine users praised the service, while others said they’ve waited for years. When a drop arrives, you could end up with a large quantity of chips dumped on your driveway without warning. It might not be the cleanest or the most finely chopped either.
But, it’s free.
Some Maine users have found more success when checking the box online that says they’re willing to accept smaller logs within the chips, and when they offer to pay $20 to cover the cost of delivery.
Others call tree companies directly, or approach an arborist on the job. Some municipalities also offer wood chips and yard waste for free or reduced cost mulch.
Scott Weeks, owner of Dirty Work Co. tree service in Bangor, doesn’t just deliver chips to people who ask. He wants his tree trimming and removal customers to keep the debris on their property and use it to create food gardens in their yards instead of it going to the city’s waste stream.
Most customers so far want chips to fill in low spots in their yards or surround a swing set. Weeks encourages them instead to use the tree debris for a method called hugelkultur, a raised mound filled with wood debris, chips, manure and topsoil.
The method conserves water, manages water runoff and creates productive soil. Weeks believes in the potential of wood debris so much that he’s going back to school so he can pivot his business to consulting on these methods.
Hugelkultur takes some getting used to, but chips are also a popular choice for no-till gardeners to cover pathways, aisles and other areas where they don’t want weeds to grow or need to keep the soil from drying out.
The chips will break down in time and might need a new layer once or twice a season.
It’s best to avoid tilling it into your planting soil or using it on vegetable crops. Nitrogen in the soil can get “tied up” when the chips start decomposing, taking it away from your plants if you put it directly on your garden beds.
But chips from arborists are a good mulch around trees, shrubs, raspberries and highbush blueberries, according to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
Outside your garden, wood chips are an option to control erosion and add more organic matter to the soil on your property as well.
The chips can also be a carbon source for a compost pile, according to the extension.
Black walnut trees have been found to have chemicals in them that reduce plant growth, but softwoods like Maine’s familiar pine trees are a safe choice.
Some Maine gardeners are particular advocates for ramial chips, made from the small branches of hardwood trees. These have a higher concentration of nutrients, decompose more quickly and promote the growth of the fungal networks that contribute to soil health.
Wood debris is a natural resource that helps landowners grow their own food and have security, to Weeks.
“I think it’s the future,” he said.
