We’re using willow wood chip as a mulch for the nursery and orchard.
The willow is growing in a corner of the nursery, split into two sections and coppiced on a two year cycle.
This ensures we get fresh chip every year and there is also lots of flowers every spring as an early source of pollen for the bees.
Ramial chipped wood means branches under 2.5 inch diameter, chipped and used as mulch.
This serves many purposes such as reducing the need for weeding, holding in moisture, feeding the soil as the mulch breaks down.
It is also thought that the salicylic acid in the willow can help combat fungal infectious such as scab.
One other great function of this mulch is it feeds the fungal duff.
The photos clearly show a living fungal entity in the form of mushrooms and the mass of white mycelium.
These chips smell lovely and mushroomy and greatly aid that ever so important relationship trees have with the fungal world.
