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Put fresh wood chips around my maples last fall, and the yellow leaves this spring tell me I messed up
Turns out those chips were from a buddy's tree service and not composted at all, so now I'm reading up on how long they actually need to sit before they stop stealing nitrogen from the soil, has anyone here dug themselves out of this same hole?
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the_jessica18d ago
Picturing your maples throwing a fit because you served them raw chips instead of the composted five course meal they wanted. Honestly though, fresh chips are like putting a wet blanket over the soil, the microbes gobbling up all the nitrogen just to break the wood down, and your trees are left standing there with empty plates. Been there in a way, spread some fresh stuff around my garden beds once and watched everything go pale on me. You have a few choices: rake them back, or just toss some nitrogen fertilizer on top to feed the little wood-eating critters so they quit robbing your trees. Next time let that pile sit for a year, or at least mix it in, because raw chips alone are a slow robbery.
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