tree shavings ok for garden

Hi
I am new to this forum and have decided to take up gardening. my first question is we had some sort of cherry tree cut down as it was blocking out the sun and the branches and leaves was shredded and left in the back gardenall at the back . i want to returf the middle of the garden and leave some borders for some plants/veg/salad/fruit etc. are the tree shavings bad for soil as in to acidic or can i mix the shavings in once i removed the top turf ready for the new turf.

 

i think i found the answer as cherry trees like alkaline soil i am guessing there be fine to spread finely in the top soil under the turf. correct me if i am wrong please

 

I think you need to rot it down first in a heap.
Fresh chippings will slowly rot taking nitrogen out of the soil in the process.

 

thanks i will do that first then although it just means piling them up in some corner (any ideas how long for). i am new to gardening and have just gone mad in buying bits and pieces before reading what order i am supposed to do it. hence me joining here

 

Welcome Yomper.

I agree about rotting down the shavings first, but the length of time it's going to take depends on how finely it's been shredded and, to an extent, how high the heap of shavings is. Of course, by just heaping it up it will rot down - eventually - but it could potentially take years - especially if the heap is large and fairly dense/compacted with little or no air circulating through it.

My suggestion would be to make a compost heap (lots of advice here under Compost and Recycling) and mix your shavings in with other compostable material - even so it could still take 2 - 3 years for those shavings to rot and, depending on how big your pile of shavings, you could potentially be looking at a very large compost heap. On the positive side however, you'll find that (at sometime in your gardening life) a compost heap is going to be indispensable, so identifying somewhere for it/them right at the outset is going to be a bonus.

Failing that, if it's a huge heap of shavings and you don't have the space or (like me) the patience to wait then, if your Council takes garden waste, I'd think about bagging up some and leaving it out for them.

 

thanks. i was planning a compost heap so sometime today i will decide on where to put that. not sure i can use it all but as you say i may have to take the rest to the garden waste centre

 

WELCOME To GC Yomper

 

totally agree with thise words

 

You could use them as a mulch once you've planted your borders