Calystegia sylvatica.

If you want it to decay and become humus, use hardwoods such as alder and maple. If you want it to resist decay and be useful for paths and soil cover, use softwoods such as cedar.

Thanks lilydude. No thanks to bboy.

Wood chips is how I got it here, so watch out.

You're welcome.

I've never answered any of your other questions, have I?

I am already fighting bindweed and it is no joke. I'm now trying to bury it under a lasagna garden. Hence the woodchips. I find your answers to other people's queries sometimes very helpful.

You have to dig it all out or kill it with repeated applications of suitable herbicidal spray. Supposedly the roots can be used as a pasta substitute, otherwise I don't think anything resembling lasagna is going to be useful in this situation. Apart from the fact that the weed penetrates various materials readily the soil system works with coarse organic material on the top only, finer materials as you work down until you reach the parent mineral soil or bedrock. Layers of soil alternating with organic matter, so that some of the coarse organic matter is well below the surface is topsy turvy (or topsy turfy!).

You're lucky you can still get them. It seems all the arborists here are selling theirs to be turned into sea soil and topsoil. Since the chips are usually mixed with green stuff, they heat up quickly and start to decompose. If you're working close to them, like spreading them around plants, it is best to wear a mask. Inhaling the bacteria can make you quite ill and if you've got asthma, will really set it off.

Thanks for the heads up madrone. I've really been trying to improve my veggie garden this year and I think these chips will enable me to make paths through the clay and will eventually add to the soil to improve it. I am going to have them dumped in a field out of the way so I hope that I will have enough to use this year and the balance will compost.

If you can get it it's wonderful stuff. I used to live out in a semi rural area where it was hard to get. No one trims trees in the country, they have them logged instead. I was able to get some finally when the power company was doing its line clearance work but they had a list a mile long of people wanting it. What I got had a lot of vine maple in it, which doesn't chip well, so I had lots of long skinny branches in my chips. Not optimal.

I used it for paths, like you're planning on, and for mulching the rose garden. I lined the paths and garden with wet cardboard or empty paper feed bags or several layers of newspaper first, then put down a layer of mushroom compost in the garden area, then several inches of the chips. The layer of paper keeps weeds from coming up through the chips but has to be overlapped thoroughly to discourage such creepers as clover and bentgrass, and several layers to discourage the thistle and fireweed. I imagine it would help to discourage imported seeds of bindweed etc. Nasty stuff but I'd risk it to get the benefits of chips. Not picturing how field bindweed seeds would get into tree trimmings anyway. If you're getting it straight from the arborist's chipper, it shouldn't have any bindweed I would think, only if it's sat around composting.

You might need an edging on your paths to contain the chips. Mine got spread all over the place by the dogs running through it, and then the grass from the lawn would creep into it too.

The local tree trimmers here come and dump it for free in a paddock. We then use it for bedding under the heifers. Every couple of months the pens get cleaned out and it's all put in the manurespreader and put in piles around the farm. Over the year, when I have spare afternoon, I take the front end loader, load the pile into the spreader again and make a new pile- aerating the mixture. After a year plus of composting and being moved twice or more, the resulting compost is ready for mulching the beds.

Uncomposted, I've started to spread it down the forest paths... but this is seeming like work!! not gardening, so I'm not sure how far the paths will get covered- maybe just the low, moist spots.

... Don