Photo: P A (Shutterstock)
Landscaping and lawn care can become expensive. Fortunately, there are plenty of free gardening resources if you know where to look, and they can get you free wood chips, as well as compost, seeds, mulch, and plain old dirt.
Where to find free wood chips
There are resources like ChipDrop in most major cities in America, which matches arborists with people who want wood chips. You can offer a tip, but you don’t have to, and you’ll still get free chips. You can also tell ChipDrop what kinds of chips you want and what you don’t.
It’s worth remembering that this is a free service, so you’re not getting the dyed, uniformed mulch from the nursery in the bags (which, separately, isn’t really very good mulch). You’re getting trees chipped that day from the truck on the way home—a lot of them—dropped in your driveway or by the street. Since they’re sweeping the street for brush and leaves, they also sometimes get a little trash, but it’s minor and, again, free. If you can’t use all your chips, neighbors often take them, or you can pay it forward by posting them on online for someone else who needs them.
If ChipDrop isn’t your vibe or you’re worried about 10 yards of chips in your yard, you can call local arborists and get on their lists—they’re always looking to offload chips as well. (Otherwise, they have to pay to dispose of them so you are working symbiotically. You get free chips, they save some cash.)
If none of those options exist for you and you want to do something like sheet mulching your lawn (because lawns suck), you can always get some blown-in mulch or the bagged stuff. It’s better than nothing, but will cost you.
