Wood Chipping

Wood Chipping in Wanaka

Recycle your garden waste, don't burn it! Whether its work that we have done or trees you have cut your self we can turn them into wood chip mulch.

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A pile of fresh wood chip on a grassy section beside a work truck, under a cloudy sky

Garden waste

Branches in, mulch out

Every pruning, hedge and removal job makes a pile of brush, and the question is what to do with it. Burning it is smoky, needs a permit in a restricted fire season, and in a Central Otago summer it is simply dangerous. Carting it to the transfer station costs time and money. The chipper turns the whole pile into mulch in an hour, on the spot.

Mulch is an invaluable resource for your garden: you are welcome to keep all you want of it, and if you would rather not, we take it away to be reused in the community. We chip the brush from our own work, and we come and chip the piles you have cut yourself.

A trailer-mounted wood chipper and an excavator with a grab on a section being cleared

Why chip rather than burn

Mulch for the garden

A layer of wood chip holds moisture through a dry summer, keeps the weeds down, protects roots from frost and slowly feeds the soil as it breaks down.

No smoke, no permit, no risk

Central Otago and the Lakes district usually go into a restricted fire season over summer and autumn. Chipping needs no permit, makes no smoke and leaves nothing smouldering.

Reused in the community

Mulch you do not want goes to gardens and projects that do. Nothing from a tree job needs to go to landfill.

A tidy finish

The site is left clear on the day, with the chip where you want it or gone.

How a chipping job runs

Stack it where we can reach it
If you have cut the brush yourself, pile it with the butt ends facing the same way near where the chipper can park. That alone halves the time.
Chip
Branches go in one end and mulch comes out the other, into a pile, a trailer or straight onto your garden beds.
Spread or take away
Keep the mulch and we point it where you want it, or we take it with us.

What affects the price and timing

Chipping is priced on time, so the size of the pile and how well it is stacked are what matter. A neat pile of branches with the cut ends together feeds quickly; a tangle dragged into a heap with roots, soil and wire in it does not, and anything that is not wood has to come out before it goes near the blades. Access for the chipper, and whether the mulch is being spread, piled or carted away, also count.

There is no bad time of year to chip, but green material chips best and leaves the cleanest mulch. If the brush has been sitting for a season and dried out, it still chips, just more slowly. Most chipping is done on the same day as the pruning, hedge trimming or removal that made it, so you only pay for one visit.

Wood chipping questions

What can go through the chipper?

Branches, hedge trimmings, prunings and small trunks. Not soil, stones, roots with dirt on them, treated timber, wire or rubbish; those damage the blades and have to be sorted out first.

How much mulch will I get?

Roughly a tenth of the volume of the loose pile. A trailer-sized heap of branches becomes a wheelbarrow or two of chip, which goes a long way on garden beds.

Can fresh wood chip go straight on the garden?

Yes, as a surface mulch around trees and shrubs, kept a hand's width clear of trunks and stems. Dig it in and it will take nitrogen from the soil as it rots, so leave it on top. Fine chip from conifers is best kept away from vegetable beds until it has aged.

Can I burn my garden waste instead?

It depends on the fire season. In an open season you can usually burn without a permit, in a restricted season you need a permit from Fire and Emergency, and in a prohibited season you cannot light a fire outdoors at all. Council rules on smoke apply all year. Fire and Emergency New Zealand's Check It's Alright site tells you what you need to do before lighting a fire outdoors and whether you need a permit. Chipping avoids the question altogether.

Do you chip piles I have cut myself?

Yes. Stack it with the cut ends together where the chipper can get to it, and give us a call.

Before you light a match

Burning garden waste in Central Otago

Central Otago and the Lakes district usually go into a restricted fire season over summer and autumn, and in a dry year a prohibited one. Before anyone lights a pile of prunings, Fire and Emergency New Zealand's Check It's Alright site is the place to find out what you need to do before lighting a fire outdoors and whether you need a permit.

Or skip the permit, the smoke and the worry, and have the pile chipped into something your garden will thank you for.