wood chip or the more preffered chipped lopped trees does not take nitrogen from the soil as it breaks down when applied as a mulch with appropriate clearance around plants and trunks usually about 6"s. we have used the product often in the past adn mostly direct freshly cut from the back of the tree loppers truck, for our ornamental tropical gardens we once follyed in, and never did any plant suffer anything but positive benefits from the dark humus the stuff turns into.

we only ever use spoilt hay or sugar cane mulches now as they add a variety of nutrients as they break down, we never did much care about pretty but now the benefits far outway the appearance which to us now is the norm'. the hay mulches keep the gardens moisture levels up very well indeed as well.

sandy,

no weeds in spoilt lucern mulch hay (best bought as spoilt hay or it is super expensive for us average gardeners) or even pasture grass hay (rhodes) any stuff that may pop up is hardly a weed, and is easily pulled and tucked under as extra nutrients.

get whatever you can we rake the slashed grass in a local park, have raked and collected slashed grasses from other peoples paddocks. if you use your mulch thickly weeds will never be an issue, our small gardens aren't brimming with weeds, sometimes wish they would, then the bugs would use the weeds instead of our plants.

think latterally, and outside the square.

that composted material from the refuse dump, yeh ok it is recycling but you should realy get informed as to what they put in that stuff before it gets into bags of potting mix, bags of garden mulch and you gardens etc.,. we use bags of it from time to time maybe 2 or 3 a year, but we use it advisedly.

anyone who lives semi-rural/rural should have opportunity for spoilt hay as mulch, even where i live i can get spoilt pasture grass hay delivered for a little more than 1/2 the price of delivered s/g mulch, for me any hay beats s/g mulch at anytime.

len