August 10th 2020 at 8:30ish AM I requested a wood chip delivery from Chip Drop. By 3pm that day the wood chips were delivered. It was a mixture of sycamore wood and bamboo. That is what I was told, but I did find some palm fronds in there as well. The whole truck load was dropped off on the driveway in about 8 minutes, and then they left.

Over the next few weeks it was taken to the back of the house barrel by barrel, covering the parts of the back that had already been treated for weeds. The initial plan was to cover the back slope with them to keep the weeds down, but that process was painfully slow. We compromised and started to cover the back with wood chips in an attempt to keep weeds down, and improve the heavy clay soil we have back there with some decaying organic matter.

The wood chips actually looked really nice compared to the black 6 mil plastic there for months prior that we used to kill the jungle of invasive weeds that had formed over years of neglect by previous owners. The cost couldn’t have been better either, it was completely free with included delivery. Tree services trim and remove trees every day, and they need places to dump the ground up wood of that day. They have yards where they can dump the load for the day, and deals with local municipalities that will take the chips, but it seems that they always have more that they need to offload.

Eventually I got around to ‘building’ a ramp to get over the retaining wall in the back and wheel the barrel up the hill. The bamboo mulch was mostly used to cover the back hill. I can finally park in the driveway again.

I am happy with the result of the mulch covering, but I don’t plan on doing that again any time soon.