Mulching & Chipping in Guys Hill

Mulching & Chipping in Guys Hill: Local Conditions and What That Means for Your Property

Mulching and chipping on Guys Hill blocks generates high volumes compared with suburban properties, and the material is almost always worth retaining on-site rather than removing. Most acreage properties have a composting or mulch-spreading requirement for the garden beds around the house, for orchard under-planting if fruit trees are present, or for re-covering bare paddock sections disturbed by construction or stock activity. After tree pruning and crown-reduction work around the homestead, a chip run produces enough material to mulch all the garden beds and still leave a stockpile. We can spread to a depth of 75 to 100 mm across prepared beds in the same visit, which reduces moisture loss significantly through the dry January-February period when these clay soils crack deeply. Branches from overgrowth clearance along Cardinia Creek fence lines (particularly ti-tree, wattles, and pittosporum removals) chip into a coarser material that is better suited to path surfacing or to applying around dam banks to suppress weeds. Where properties have had blackberry or other declared weed species in the cleared material, we separate that from the general chip and handle it under the relevant guidelines. Blackberry cane material should not be spread as mulch. On blocks where horse agistment is the primary use, woodchip around stable and yard entries reduces mud compaction significantly through winter. Owners running kitchen gardens benefit from keeping woody material separate from green-waste mulch. The fine green material breaks down faster and is better as direct soil incorporation.