Wood chips vs. wood shavings

Hi,

I've been a lurker here for a while, but finally registered and now I have a question.

I am planning a Hugelkultur and some raised beds in my garden and wanted to use wood chips as mulch. However, it is hard to get here and I don't want to invest in a chipper for my tractor if I don't have to, obviously.
What I can get a lot of, though, is wood shavings. Would that work as well?

Trond

Trond Urestad wrote:Hi,

I've been a lurker here for a while, but finally registered and now I have a question.

I am planning a Hugelkultur and some raised beds in my garden and wanted to use wood chips as mulch. However, it is hard to get here and I don't want to invest in a chipper for my tractor if I don't have to, obviously.
What I can get a lot of, though, is wood shavings. Would that work as well?

Trond

I would think large a mounts of wood shavings would also work well.

Send us pictures of your garden during the year.

i use shavings all the time from my woodturnings and jointer/planer, even a little sawdust mixed into compost.
shavings will break down faster than big chips., i think they're a better mulch .
some woods i've read aren't so good to use ,such as walnut . there are a few others too.

in the past I used a ton of wood shavings that were like the ones sold as pet bedding, both for mulch and for holding moisture in the soil..and it worked quite well..although they were bright when they were first put on as they were fresh..and bright yellowish brown..but after no time they faded to a decent color..and I liked using them as they would sift between plants well as a mulch..and were fairly easy to bury into the soil..or rake in.

I've also made hugel beds from putting bark and wood chips into trenches and then covering..and the beds worked very well

Thanks everyone for the feedback.
I'll proceed with the shavings, then!

As McCoy suggests, I'll post pics as it progresses.
The snow won't leave my part of Norway until the end of March at the earliest, so will take a while before I can start.

Trond