Bark and Wood Chips

When possible I do try and encourage people to place bark or wood chips on borders and around the base of shrubs and trees, they make a nice contrast to the garden, brings the colour out of the plants and flowers. The benefits of using Bark and Wood Chips are:

Suppress weeds

Looks attractive

Will save you money on maintaining the borders

Provide good mulch and help retain water for plants and shrubs, and protects roots from frost.

Compost slowly, so it only need topping up occasionally 

By keeping the weeds down allows the flowers and shrubs to grow to their full potential

As mentioned bark and wood chippings provide a natural barrier against weeds, only very determined weeds will grow through a properly applied mulch, these will be easy to spot and remove, a good layer of chippings will also protect plant roots from frost damage in winter or scorching sun in summer. And it will act as a mulch to retain moisture in the soil, keeping a healthy environment for your plants.

Bark and wood chips also look great when you glimpse the spaces between shrubs and plants in a border.

Maintenance for bark chip is minimal. You might want to rake it over from time to time just to freshen it up. Other than that, just enjoy that natural woodland look.

Over time, woodchips and bark compost down into the soil. This adds soil nutrients and improves the structure. We are talking years rather than weeks or months.

As you know I do not advertise myself as a landscape gardener, purely for the fact that I like to be able to change my garden around at any time, and re-design flower beds and move raised vegetable beds, using bark and wood chip allows me to change my garden any time I like.