Chip No Drop

September 13th, 2022

   I’ve used fresh wood chips for a variety of mulching jobs around my yard in the past, so I was eager to try a young web-based service that matches tree companies that have wood chips to get rid of with gardeners willing to take them.

Waiting for my load of wood chips to show up.

   The way it works is that you sign up for free on the ChipDrop website, then the service adds your name and address to a list that area arborists can access when they need to dump trees and branches they’ve chipped.

   I signed up June 22. However, after more than two months of waiting for a load, I gave up. I had to use my fall-back plan of paying $30 a yard for a delivery of shredded hardwood from the landscape supply company.

   I was hoping ChipDrop worked out because it’s a win-win idea that gets gardeners free (or very cheap) mulch while saving arborists the travel time and cost of disposing of chips.

   To its credit, ChipDrop does warn up front that there’s no guarantee you’ll actually get a delivery.

   The service says you can increase your delivery odds by being willing to pay the $20 fee that arborists otherwise are charged to access the drop-off list. I signed up to cover the $20.

   Despite that, my little marker bucket sat in the driveway for weeks with no chips in sight.

   Every few weeks, ChipDrop did email me a “sorry” notice and asked if I wanted to renew the request, which I did a couple of times.

   Maybe I just timed it badly or maybe not many arborists are using the service in my area. Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.

   At any rate, it didn’t work out for me. Have any of you had any experience with ChipDrop or other ways of getting free wood chips?

   In general, wood chips make good mulch.

   Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott, author of “The Informed Gardener” book and a University of Washington Extension educator, is particularly fond of them. Check out a post she’s written on the benefits and myths of arborist wood chips as mulch.

   I think wood chips are especially good choices for pathways and on the soil surface between shrubs and evergreens.

These cut trees produced a lot of wood chips that I used in a variety of ways.

   When I had several big old trees cut down a few years ago, the arborists ground up the chips and left them on site for me to move around. The chips saved a lot of money, leveled a lot of ground, choked out a lot of weeds, and caused no problems that I noticed (i.e. with pH, bug, disease, and/or nitrogen-stealing issues that people often warn about).

   Now that I don’t have any of my own chips to use as the earlier ones are breaking down, ChipDrop sounded like a good solution.

   The underlying premise is that tree companies need to regularly dispose of chopped and chipped trees and appreciate help finding nearby dump sites.

   ChipDrop obviously thought through the possible ramifications and drawbacks and even produced a video called, “Why ChipDrop Is Probably Not for You.”

   The service’s website gives gardeners options, such as whether logs are OK along with chips, and it gives you a chance to specify instructions, such as where it’s best to dump.

   It also warns gardeners that they can’t control when or if they get a delivery or how many chips they get. Companies will drop off whatever they have in the truck that day… whether it’s four yards or 20.

   Companies don’t even have to call you ahead of time either to alert you that a load is on the way.

   Although ChipDrop does have standards on chip deliveries, it warns that it’s not unusual for loads to include rocks, sticks, unchipped brush, soil, gravel, and even trash swept up during loading.

   What’s not allowed are rocks bigger than an inch, logs or stump grindings (unless the gardener specified he/she wanted them), unchipped materials totaling more than five percent of the load, construction waste, grass clippings, and “more garbage than you could pick up with two hands.”

   ChipDrop says a typical load contains about 50 percent wood chips and 50 percent green, leafy material or pine needles that have been ground up from the tree.

   That all sounds fine to me.

   Now if only I could get a load…