Wood chip from a tree surgeon or bark for old turf area?

[MrAlyakhin]

So I posted previously about getting rid of artificial turf. Hopefully removing a large section today of 20 square metres. It will leave an area of compacted sand and gravel that I plan on slowly breaking up over the next few months. To make it look better in the meantime I am going to cover the area in bark.

It's not the cheapest and I've seen online people get tree surgeons to drop off wood chip for free or minimal cost. This is obviously freshly through the wood chipper. Is there any reason why that's a bad idea? Am I better off just paying for bark?

Bark is more uniform and more processed. I've had wood chip from tree surgeons and also from talking nicely to the local authority gang who were dealing with storm damaged trees, they were happy to deliver the chippings to me instead of taking them back to base. I've also had 'sawdust' from local wood workshops, it' much biggher pieces than 'dust' suggests but not as big as bark. I've used it for paths and it's been fine.

However I'd give some thought to what you eventually want to put there and when. The sawdust degrades faster than the wood chip and leaves a different kind of base. I've never used bark so I can't say how that would degrade.

It depends on what’s your long term plan? Are you hoping to have a lawn one day? Or pave it? I’d be tempted to gravel it (bulk bags would work out at a similar cost to bark) then add raised beds made out of sleepers for planting and even try planting some Mediterranean type plants directly into the gravel.

Fresh wood chippings deplete the soil of nitrogen as they decompose, and you have no idea what sort of tree they come from either. Leylandii for instance would be a pretty poor choice as it gives off a chemical that inhibits the growth of anything in the vicinity, and yew is downright poisonous. For a huge area that's not going to be used, it would be okay, but not really in a smallish garden area.

Composted bark would be a better choice. That usually comes as a by-product of the timber industry and will be mostly pine, spruce etc.

We don't have lawn at all just shrubs, trees, a path and bark. Lots of bark! We buy it in bulk from Scotbark and have it delivered on a pallet in big bags. The first time we had one huge bag but found that hard to manage so opt for the smaller bags when we need it. Works out cheaper than buying individual bags from gthe garden centre or b&q. We top up every 5 years or so and the heavy clay is becoming much better to dig because of it!

What is the plan after bark? Think about If that will be harder to achieve if to remove the gravel you need to sift off the top layer first

I’d look into the impact of disease on bark. We’ve recently had a diseased weeping ask felling and the root ground out. The chipper was going for ages, and I did wonder if they’d reuse the chipping an elsewhere and concluded that they might not because the tree was diseased.

I have a feeling that using bark compost contributed to my honey fungus disease