Most tree services are looking for new places to get rid of wood chips. If the company is fortunate enough to have a yard to store plant equipment, firewood, and wood chips, they can and sell them at a later date.

This is what they normally do….

pile of mulch

After removing a customer’s tree, quite often the customer will request the wood chips for their garden. Tree services are happy to oblige as it means one less trip to go and dump the wood chips somewhere else.

Customers who have gardens will find a lot of use for wood chips. They are good at suppressing weed. By adding wood chips in the area, weeds are not able to germinate.

garden mulch

2. Store them in their yard for later sale

Most tree services do not have a yard to store wood chips. The few that do will sell them on for a profit. In most cases, landscapers directly need them for their work or private customers.

Since it is not always possible to sell them immediately, they opt to store them and sell them whenever demanded by landscapers.

blog wood chips

3. Give them to landscape suppliers free

For the rest of the tree services who do not have a yard for storage, they need to unload them quickly. If their truck is full of chips, they cannot keep working, so they need to dump them.

Most of the time, the supply of woodchips is quite high, so tree services are just happy to unload them free of charge.

Since landscape suppliers deal with selling landscape materials, they will work as a good source of income. They can easily sell the wood chips to their customers who need them for landscaping.

This is a symbiotic relationship as tree services have a quick and easy way to get rid of woodchips and the landscape suppliers or nurseries make 100% profit on the sale of them.

bulk_mulch landscapers
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Can I get wood chips for free?

Yes. There is always a tree service company somewhere willing to get rid of wood chips by offering them for free. The best way to find such deals is by looking online where many companies post the information.

There are also platforms like Get Chip Drop that enable arborists and other people to meet with tree companies that need to give out wood chips. Another way to find free wood chips is by looking for posters and signs from people who want to give them out.

People who have also done tree removal and are left with excess wood chips are willing to give them away.

How do I get rid of excess woodchips?

  1. Place a sign at the front of your house “Free wood chips”
  2. The sign should be just a simple one giving specific details “free wood chips” and within a short time, you will find someone interested.
  3. Sell Gumtree
  4. Freebies on eBay

What is the difference between woodchips and mulch?

Wood Chips and mulch are essentially the same thing. Wood Chips1 are created when a tree is fed into a mulching machine. This can be used as mulch in your garden.

Mulch is a term used to describe any organic material used to cover a garden bed for moisture retention.

Other typical types of much are:

  • Leaves
  • Grass clippings
  • Pea gravel
  • Hay or straw
  • Pine needles

Wood Chips are by far the most popular form of mulch as they work well and look great.

Its small size nature enables it to fit between even small plants and provides a good mulching effect. The mixture of materials such as leaves and bark also offers additional benefits where some of them are used as nutrients.

Four Mulch types

Are woodchips good for soil/gardens?

Yes. Wood Chips are known to work very well for gardens and soil since they offer many benefits. Some of them include moisture retention which improves the growth of plants. Another benefit is that they are able to suppress weeds by stopping germination where they are placed.

In addition to that, with time, wood chips decompose and provide organic material that becomes vital in sustaining and boosting the state of the soil.

Another thing worth mentioning is the massive boost in curb appeal your home and garden will get by spreading some fresh mulch. It smells and looks great for years.

  1. Hunker, (2022) Difference Between Mulch and Wood Chips. <https://www.hunker.com/13404724/difference-between-mulch-wood-chips> Accessed: 22-02-2024.
Ben McInerney
Author: Ben McInerney - Ben is a qualified arborist with 15 plus years of industry experience in Arboriculture. He ran a successful tree service before turning to writing and publishing. Ben is dedicated to providing users with the most accurate up-to-date information on everything trees.