Last week the Sunny Border got an extra layer of compost to raise the soil level slightly around the three L.D. Braithwaite roses my parents gave the Flâneur Husband for his birthday, and on top of that we added that big no-go, a mulch of shredded twigs and branches from when we cut back the purple-leaf plum that had too many dead twigs and branches to be sightly.
It looks terribly tidy now it has been weeded and mulched, but the main point was really just to get rid of the wood from the tree so we wouldn’t have yet another pile of branches looking messy in a corner of the garden. (We have plenty of those…)
I will try to make some nitrogen-rich compost with a large share of grass clippings so the breaking-down of the wood chips won’t deplete the soil of nitrogen and harm the plants.
Over the summer we will probably get rid of some more branches by throwing them through the wood chipper; a pile of chipped wood just takes up so much less space than a pile of branches, and it will definitely improve the over-all look of the garden.
There will still be hiding-places for wildlife in the garden, though; we took all the trunks and larger branches and stacked them behind the rhododendrons so they are out of sight but might provide a habitat for insects and other critters.
Another main point of this exercise was that the Flâneur Husband likes power tools / toys, so I did the job of cutting up the branches in manageable sizes and he had great fun putting them through the chipper.
Oh I could use that wood chipper to make my own mulch…maybe we can pile our wood and rent one…great idea.
We just got the cheapest one, so it didn’t cost a fortune, and I think it’s well worth it just to get rid of the piles of branches and twigs that would otherwise soon fill up the garden.
They are actually not that expensive to buy and they are thrilling toys… The sound, the visual effect and the result is great.
You looked like you enjoyed yourself, for sure.
I wish I had a wood chipper. But we’ve seen so many horror shows, my husband would be worried if I brought one home! hahaha Seriously, though, I can imagine it is a wonderful thing to have. We have lots of dead branches that have fallen off trees just laying in piles. It would be wonderful to have them chipped up into mulch!
It makes the idea of tidying up the messy corner of the garden much more realistic! Even if you don’t use the wood chips in the garden you’ll still reduce the size of your piles of branches by 90% or something like that.
I can see how it evokes horror movie scenarios, though. (Still, I don’t think you could fit a whole person through the hole; it’s a small house-hold model, rather than one of the big industrial-scale ones.)