growing new lawn over wood chippings

Hello,

We have recently moved into a new house, our garden is split into 2 sections with a pond in the middle, the second section of garden had loads of laurel and other trees overgrowing in it which have now all been cut down and shredded this weekend. The ground does not really have much grass on it, and we are thinking that we would like to possibly turf this area or grown grass using seed. The question we have is can we put this shreddings produced onto the garden floor with a view to grassing in the future, OR because the chippings contain 70% LAUREL, is this going to cause a problem as we have heard that it could be poisounous and would not allow anything to grown if it was spread over that area of garden floor.

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks


Stuart

 

hi stuart

im not to sure but if it were me then i would remove as much as you can and then topsoil it before seeding,

i think turf would be better as seed it a bit hit and miss and you find yourself seeding it for a few years to get it fully covered ,

it depends on when your going to do it as if your looking at 12 months time the shreddings should break down by then im not sure if the laurel is poisonous someone will advise on that so you could leave them and then topsoil it first.

sorry i can't help much


lisa

 

Laurel contains some cyanide, but it dissipates once the wood and leaves are dead. I regularly put laurel prunings through the shredder. The product has a strong almondy smell, which I think is the cyanide. Once it has been composted for a few weeks the smell goes, and it rots down normally. So, I think it would be more important to prepare the ground than to worry about the laurel