Turning Arborist Wood Chips Into Fungal Mulch For Perennial Beds

Arborists encounter large volumes of wood chips when performing tree care services, providing them with access to an abundant source of mulch – much better than anything available for purchase in stores.

Wood chip mulch effectively blocks sunlight from soil, helping prevent weed seed germination and inhibiting some opportunistic fungal diseases that attack plants.

How to Make Fungal Mulch

Wood chip compost will immediately add value to your garden. Use the hot composting method to turn arborist wood chips into high-grade gardening material; it will kill weed seeds while sterilizing organic materials making them safe for gardening use.

Landscape mulches often lack nitrogen – essential fuel for microorganisms that decompose organic matter and recycle its nutrients back into soil. Without enough nitrogen in your mulch, it will take much longer for fungi to break down organic material into usable nutrients; leaving behind an unsightly mass of alien-looking spores instead of beautiful soil-enhancing mulches.

Landscape mulches like wood chips and shredded bark used on perennial beds offer ideal conditions for fungal growth, such as stinkhorns and slime molds as well as bird’s nest fungus – which produces shiny black spots that resemble tar that are particularly difficult to remove from light-colored house sidings.

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

Arborist wood chips make an excellent mulch choice, since they contain various materials derived from trees: branches, twig bark, leaves and small trunks and stems from various trees. As arborist mulch contains such diverse elements that reduce soil compaction while serving as an excellent alternative to store-bought uniform mulch that compacts into a mat that prevents water infiltration, Arborist mulch prevents soil compaction while remaining water permeable for maximum infiltration.

Fungi are natural inhabitants of mulch and are essential in breaking down organic matter in our humid North Carolina climate. However, when their growth is encouraged by excessive moisture or warm temperatures – such as too much mulch (over 2-3 inches thick), shade or overly dry soil conditions – they can become an annoyance and potentially contribute to its spread.

Mushrooms and slime mold are two of the most frequently found nuisance fungi found in mulch. Mushrooms include toadstools with their iconic cap and fingerlike stinkhorns with sticky spores that attract flies that spread them throughout your garden or home. Slime mold is another fungal growth which dries out quickly under cool conditions but may leave unsightly spots behind it on walkways and cars.

Step 2: Mix the Materials

As using green wood chip mulch can reduce weed growth in perennial flower beds, you can cut back on their number by blocking sunlight to them and suppressing seed germination and spreading of perennial weeds that have taken hold. This allows desirable plants to compete more effectively for space, water, and nutrients than before.

Arborist wood chips provide more durable and long-term coverage, not to mention not binding up nitrogen in the soil like finely shredding bark mulch does.

Your local utility company could be an excellent source for wood mulch. After storms hit, crews that trim trees around residential powerlines often dump the chipped branches on nearby properties in order to avoid costly disposal fees.

Wood mulch that features branches, twig bark and roots with various particle sizes provides a healthy environment for soil organisms that support healthier plants while decreasing the need for high-nitrogen fertilizers that stimulate leaf growth but don’t promote flower bloom. This type of wood mulch provides natural protection from erosion as it protects the environment against erosion while helping plants flourish naturally and reduce the need for high nitrogen fertilizers that stimulate leaf growth but don’t help bloom flowers.

Step 3: Add the Mix to the Soil

Mulch can have a dramatic impact on soil health. As it decomposes, fresh organic matter feeds microbes and fungi found in the soil that in turn suppress root disease while helping plants absorb essential nutrients. Furthermore, thick layers of mulch help retain moisture levels and moderate soil temperatures, all factors essential to overall soil wellness.

Arborist wood chips, which closely mimic what would naturally exist in woodland ecosystems, make an excellent organic mulch choice. Composed of various materials (twig bark, roots, leaves, branches), they come in an assortment of particle sizes to support a diverse community of soil life than finely shredded mulches; yet are large enough not to break down into it and require frequent replenishing.

Wood chip mulch also doesn’t tie up nitrogen in the root zone like other wood products can, nor acidify soil. Furthermore, adding a thick layer of wood chip mulch suppresses annual weeds by slowing their growth rate and keeping them from competing with perennial plants for sunlight – significantly reducing weeding tasks and making amending soil amendment and planting easier to achieve.

Step 4: Cover the Soil with Mulch

Mulching can be an efficient and simple way to reduce labor intensive maintenance on garden beds. Mulch helps smother existing weeds and prevent new ones from sprouting by blocking sunlight for photosynthesis. Furthermore, water soaks through into the soil via mulch layers which aids nutrient availability as well as insulate against hot summer temperatures and cold winter temperatures, keeping moisture consistent within soil layers to provide more stable environments for plants.

Although wood mulch may temporarily reduce nitrogen levels in your soil, this won’t negatively affect established plants or spread disease pathogens or insect pests.

Utilizing services like ChipDrop can provide a great way to secure free arborist wood mulch from local sources that you know have not come into contact with any pests. Tree trimmers may have leftover wood chips available that have been shredded; these will likely break down more quickly.