Mulches
Woodchips are a great option for mulching playground areas, landscape features, or around trees and shrubs.
Adding mulch to the surface of garden beds and around trees or shrubs, such as raspberries, haskap, or perennials helps to conserve water, control weeds, prevent compaction from rain, and moderate soil temperatures. It also adds a beautiful finishing touch to many growing projects. Two to four inches of mulch is typically sufficient, and should be topped up as needed. Mulch can also be used as a filler or base layer when creating new beds.
Wood builds up soil organic matter (SOM) as it slowly breaks down and mixes with the soil. Fresh wood should not be mixed into the soil, as microorganisms digesting the wood also take up nitrogen, making this important and limited nutrient unavailable to the plants ‒at least temporarily. There however are indications that in cold climate conditions such as those of the Yukon this process is so slow that the impact on nitrogen is marginal.
Three main types of wood mulch are:
The first tends to have a higher nutrient content than the others. Forestry Woodchips mainly contains Spruce and Pine, whilst Agriculture Woodchips also contains Aspen and is coarser.
Specific weight of wood mulch can vary 176-192 kg /m3 depending on moisture content and size particle, with typical value at 185 kg /m3.
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