[Chris929]

Hi All,

I have been trying to get hold of some woodchips (for free!) in the local area of Leeds to use for paths and a weed suppressant. It seems that all the local tree surgeons charge for the chips so not got anywhere. I was thinking if anyone has made their own chips by saving up branches etc and obtaining a woodchipper (?) to DIY.

I'm not sure if you would need such a large amount of wood to produce a decent quantity of chips that makes it undoable but open to any thoughts people have.
Cheers

[New shoot]

The chippers used by tree surgeons are big and dangerous machines and are not generally on hire to the public.  A smaller domestic machine will be a lot slower and yes, you do need a lot of wood.

It may be worth trying a few other sources for wood/wood chip.  Gardening firms sometimes have piles of waste to get shot of and will let you take it.  We have a country park near us that has huge piles of wood chip dumped in an area where anyone is free to come and collect what they want.  Have you tried Freecycle?  It might be someone has had some tree work done and not wanted to pay to get the chip taken away or has wood to chip that you could take away.

[rowlandwells]

 I tend to agree with New shoot you would be well advised to look up your local tree surgeon as they normally welcome somewhere to dump there chippings especially if its near to where there cutting

our local tree surgeon has bought us several tonnes  of chippings down the allotments  for us to use on the allotment paths on our plots there must be around five tons on our plot its rotting down lovely to use next spring

and as said the local  tree surgeon mite have loads of chippings dumped in his yard for you to take away free of charge if you lived here there wouldn't be any problem getting wood chippings anyway good luck with finding some wood chippings RW

[Chris929]

Thanks to you both. I have managed to source some, I just need to say how much I would like. Do you have any recommendations on how much per metre of path? And would you put a membrane underneath? I'm wanting to do it on the cheap so thought about missing the membrane....

In a perfect world I would cover about 60m of paths that are about 0.5m wide. I'm just not sure how deep I would need it to suppress weeds.

[New shoot]

I have just had a quick pace out on my raised beds at home and I have about the same area of path.  Mine are gravel and I got it delivered in one of those big white ton dumpy bags. 

If you look at it as a volume, rather than a weight, I reckon a dumpy bag full would do it, but if you can get 2, I would.  You need a couple of inches in depth and any spare can be stacked and stored.  There is always a use for it.  The paths will need topping up for a start.

I wouldn't bother with membrane.  Annual weeds pull out easily and I use a small spray of weedkiller on anything else