Lucky you... should be ale to spread immediately. Otherwise store and use as needed.

I notice there is lots of advice on GoY about mulching and how to produce it although it seems you need to let it rot down which is time-consuming. If anyone has any advice to offer that would be great but from reading the info on the alphabetical index at the bottom of the page it seems it isn't advisable to use the shredded branches.

It is conifers that they are shredding...thanks for your your encouraging comments, MG....now I wonder if I should just do what you suggest? I wonder if all beginners are hesitant as I am about experimenting! Very frustrating.

MG is right, you can use the shredded wood and bark as mulch straight away. It takes over a year to darken, so either mix it with more mulch/compost to make it look less obvious or make sure you have enough of it to cover a whole border as it looks silly having expanses of light and then dark mulch.

As it is conifer it will be acidic when breaking down. It will make the soil more acidic.

I would soak the mulch and the earth for a few hours before laying it to lock in the moisture.

Brilliant....I think I'll be using it :) Will ferns and hostas grow in the acidic soil? I thought of using it in my shade garden along with some topsoil as I have to build up the area. Just concerned that having acidic soil will not agree with other plants in my borders?

Both the ferns and hostas will be fine. The bark will only effect plants that prefer alkaline soil. It will look lovely when added to your borders. And you may even get some really interestig fungi on the chippings which will do no harm and is infact very normal on new chippings.

A neighbour had a huge leylandii removed as the roots were going underneath another neighbour's house (she fought having this done for years) B. got some of the chippings and used on the path in our veggie garden... yes it looks a little 'raw' but it will settle down and a good thick layer keeps the weeds at bay.

My cousins neighbour had some massive Black Poplars taken down from her back boundary. They were leaning over a bit. Neighbour had a very large garden. Able to afford felling, shredding and spreading of such massive trees. The garden seemed to thrive on on this treatment. Now a quarter has disapeared under a block of 8 flats. Cousin had moved house before the flats were built. The person who bought my her house now owns the part of this garden that ran behind her rather shallow back garden. Amazing how things can change so quickly.

You've all encouraged me and given me first class info...many thanks. Thankfully our daughter has a very long, large garden and can put the chippings in a hidey-hole for me so I can collect them little and often to ease transport :)

I am made up....more freebies for our garden. Her hubby has organized a team of maintenance men and friends from work to do the job with him. I'll keep you posted!

I love that 'made up' expression used in Merseyside area, not in London. I never heard it as a child growing up in the Warrington area. Give a shiver in winter and say 'it's nesh today'. My OH never heard 'stop mithering' until we met. My Grandad used to speak broad Cheshire dialect to everyone, including the vicar as he passed down the street to the vicarage.

Nesh and mithering -thanks Whistonlass, that takes me right back to my Sheffield childhood. But it wasn't the weather that was nesh, it was somebody who feels the cold easily and it was a bit of a criticism.

Well, being Canadian by birth and living there well into adulthood I have a lot of confusion when it comes to the expressions used in various parts of the UK. Things don't always translate very well across the Atlantic...lol....it did get me in trouble with people once in awhile when we couldn't understand one another! ~~~

Hi Whistonlass, I'm playing catch up. I realise I'm 6 months out of date but I noticed your question and as nobody else has mentioned it I thought I would pass on advice given to me by the owner and Plant Collector Peter Cox of Glendoick Garden in Perthshire. He told me to give the plants a feed of nitrogen or bone meal before depositing the fresh chippings because they compete with the plants for a share of the nitrogen in the soil. They use it to help break down the wood. I also put a layer of newspaper between my soil and the chippings to act as an extra barrier against weeds. I found weed fabric unwieldy to use whereas I could cut the paper and shape it to go round the base of plants with ease. If I want to remove or plant new plants it is easy to scrape away the paper and replace it under the mulch when planting is done.

Good information SGran. Our daughter found the shredder they had was not up to the job and ended up having to take a lot of the branches for recycling. So after all my enquiries I didn't end up with mulch :(

I'm hoping when the next lot of trees come down they'll be able to get a more suitable shredder so I can get some mulch.

I did get some logs though which have settled in very nicely in our garden....that was a pleasing addition :)

You might be able to grow some special, expensive in the shops, type mushrooms on your logs and even if you don't do that the birds love to perch on them and nibble away at the beasties in the bark. You will have a wild life garden in no time. Our tree surgeons brought along a monster shredder which could cope with branches up to 8" thick so we were lucky and got lots of mulch. I bagged what i could not use immediately and I still have bags left.