Topic: Woodchip on weed suppressing fabric

[I love digging]

I've put weed suppressing fabric around my fruit bushes/canes and at the moment it's held down with bricks, stones and planks of wood.  Is it a good idea or not to cover the fabric with woodchips?

[gwynleg]

I havent on the basis that it will rot down and grow weeds in it,  but have used metal pegs to keep the fabric down. I use it on paths and the pegs have worked well.

[goodlife]

I would not use woodchips right against the bushes. But leave bare circle around bush..maybe use some bricks to create edge and then chip the surrounding area. Reason behind my thinking is..woodchips may have or may attract some fungal deseases and have those against the crown of the bush may spread into it. If you chippings are fresh they will need lots of nitrogen to break down. This nitrogen is taken up from soil..weather you use fabric or not. And you get competition for the nitrogen as your bushes will need it too for growth.
I used fabric with woodchippings for one of my apple areas. And it slowed the establishment and growth of the trees a lot. Eventually I cleared some chippings away and made little "islands" by cutting fabric off around the trees, edged with bricks and then fertilizer and compost mulch inside. Only after that the trees started proper growth.
Now I only have to mulch once a year and pull off odd weed from the "islands" and chippings does the job for rest of the area. ;)

[goodlife]

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I havent on the basis that it will rot down and grow weeds in itYes..all good stuff will come to an end eventually..
Luckily I've got access to free chippings so every 3-4 years I "just scrape" all off into compost bin and spread new stuff on. In compost bin all weeds will die off and now well rotted chippings will turn into wonderfull dark brown, crumbly "compost"...and after few months in bin it will be spread on veg beds..nothing wasted ;)

[Vinlander]

I've put weed suppressing fabric around my fruit bushes/canes and at the moment it's held down with bricks, stones and planks of wood.  Is it a good idea or not to cover the fabric with woodchips?

It's always a good idea to cover any plastic to keep the sun off - if you do it will literally last forever (until it is physically torn or abraded); if you don't it will start to break up in a few years and be worse than useless.

Woodchip doesn't encourage much in the way of weed seedlings if it isn't in a damp spot - the top layer tends to stay fairly dry (even more so if there is membrane underneath) and it never consolidates so it is really easy to hoe anyway.

Strawberries will colonise it fairly quickly and so would creeping buttercup - but neither of these survive shearing off just below soil level.

The most important thing is to have it deep enough to hoe through without ever catching the membrane - this also applies to gravel.

Cheers.

[Busby]

Be very careful with woodchips. I cut my cherry tree back in February and shredded the branches. Then, thinking it was a good idea I covered one of my rhubarb plants with the chips to see what happens if I 'protect' it from the winter. The plant spent the summer just trying to develop and has now died. I assume there must be a sort of acid in woodchips if they are fresh.

[goodlife]

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I assume there must be a sort of acid in woodchips if they are fresh.  
   
That is classic example of what fresh woodchips do when competing for nitrogen in soil. Rhubarb being really 'hungry' plant as well would be seriously effected.
You could have get away with it if you would have realized to apply some high nitrogen feed as well to compensate the robbing from the soil.
If the woodchip is made out of coniferous trees..there will be quite likely some green bits mixed in....all ever green conifers,,,pines,,etc. have this chemical in their  green bits that will suppress the growth of other plants. You can see this clearly in pine forrests...there is very few other species growing on ground.
 

[kt.]

Part of my front garden has hessian laid with shop purchased prepacked bark chippings on the surface.  There are 8 small shrub plants growing from cuts in the hessian.  This was done 3 years ago and I have had no problems at all. I have recently removed four creeping weeds on the surface but other than that is has been maintenance free ;)

[goodlife]

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I cut my cherry tree back in February and shredded the branches.Bark removed in the winter (on chippings) is more toxic than summer bark. Bark contain phytotoxic oils that can poison many plants. And top of that softwood bark has more of these oils than hardwood.

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shop purchased prepacked bark chippings on the surface...I have had no problems at allThat's because commercial bagged bark products are already treated to remove the phytotoxic oils. ;)..and bark is sturctually much larger and porous and thus individual pieces are less in contact to the soil and are much  slower to go through composting process...less nitrogen intake..less competition. Very good choice of mulch but not cheap to use on large areas, though long lasting.
Fresh wood chip not only have the oils in them they also need high quantity of nitrogen to proceed to compost. Oils are processed during composting. So having the double whammy against plants may become problem.
I learned it hard way and although I use fresh stuff all the time I do it with "distance" and I always apply handfull or so some chicken manure undernearth the chipping too ;)..problems solved...not trouble anymore.

[ACE]

I covered one of my rhubarb plants with the chips to see what happens if I 'protect' it from the winter.

Rhubarb needs a frost on its roots to get the best out of it, then darkened to force it on.

Look up about the 'Rhubarb triangle' up in the frozen wastelands of the north.

[Vinlander]

I assume there must be a sort of acid in woodchips if they are fresh.

There is one in prunus chippings - it's cyanide.

That's why it's a really bad idea to let cherry or plum leaves into your fishpond.

It's varying strengths in different species (and the ornamental cherries are probably stronger than sweet cherries) but it's so strong in the cherry laurel (not a real laurel) that it is really dangerous to burn it.

I'm not sure it works against plants but it's a pretty powerful chemical.

[chriscross1966]

By spring I'll have a fair old pile of shredded leylandii at home where I took iout what was left of a leylandii hedge (I think hanging shoudl be a first offence punishment for leylandii planters BTW).../ that stuff is going nowhere near my plants until it's sat in a builders bag with as much extra manure in it that I can fit and a load of BFB for at least a year, more likely two....

chrisc

[lincsyokel2]

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I cut my cherry tree back in February and shredded the branches.Bark removed in the winter (on chippings) is more toxic than summer bark. Bark contain phytotoxic oils that can poison many plants. And top of that softwood bark has more of these oils than hardwood.

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shop purchased prepacked bark chippings on the surface...I have had no problems at allThat's because commercial bagged bark products are already treated to remove the phytotoxic oils. ;)..and bark is sturctually much larger and porous and thus individual pieces are less in contact to the soil and are much  slower to go through composting process...less nitrogen intake..less competition. Very good choice of mulch but not cheap to use on large areas, though long lasting.
Fresh wood chip not only have the oils in them they also need high quantity of nitrogen to proceed to compost. Oils are processed during composting. So having the double whammy against plants may become problem.
I learned it hard way and although I use fresh stuff all the time I do it with "distance" and I always apply handfull or so some chicken manure undernearth the chipping too ;)..problems solved...not trouble anymore.

Commercial bagged bark is 'buffered' - its washed in a alkaline solution. Furthermore, its allowe dto dry out before its used. Finally, there's different grades (particle sizes) of bark, depending on what its intending for, whats in it, going under such names as Fine Grade Bark, Nursery Bark, Woodland Bark, Contract Ornamental Bark, Landscaping Bark, Hardwood Chips and Playgrade Bark.  A lot of the softwood timber that goes to the recycle plant is chipped up and bunged into landscaping bark.

Fresh wood chips sucks up nitrogen as it decays and composts. If you bung it on plants that need lots of nitrogen, they will die of nitrogen shortage. Fresh wood chips and bark shoudl be allowed to season or composted.

[Vinlander]

It would take a really rigorous trial to convince me that "nitrogen robbery" can take place more than a few millimetres from the nitrogen-poor substance.

If something like sawdust is mixed right through the soil the effect will be profound and rapid, but if it is spread as a mulch then any depleted zone will be a few millimetres on the surface - where it will have minimal effect because plant roots will avoid it and seek their nutrients elsewhere - this is what plants do!

Woodchip simply isn't in the same league - and all my experience backs this up.

Weeds don't colonise it immediately, but strawberry runners do because they can punch right through (a couple of centimetres) to fertility.

Microbes work hard but they don't have roots or mycelium so they can't move nutrients more than a few microns - even recently discovered and exotic 'bucket brigade' processes which involve huge colonies don't move more than millimetres.