Here’s How This Reader Scored FREE Wood Chips For Her Garden
This reader has a clever tip for getting free wood chips! 🪴
We love hearing about ways to get freebies. This week’s Happy Friday reader, Sarah, has a very helpful tip to share with gardeners and homeowners! After struggling with rough topsoil, Sarah found a company that provides free wood chips to gardeners. Now, her garden is flourishing!
Here’s Sarah’s story!
“When we bought our acreage, I thought we could just plant a garden. Nope! Our soil is horrible clay and impossible for gardening. Even weeds won’t grow (see picture of rocky, unamended soil).”
“We signed up on Chipdrop for local utilities to drop wood chips in our yard when they are trimming trees in our area. It’s free and saves them time and gas taking loads to the county dump site. We have a huge pile that we are using for our gardens.”
“The chips break down into beautiful soil and also help keep us from having to water as much in the garden. It’s been probably my greatest deal yet as we are harvesting so many things from our beautiful garden now!”
This is such a helpful tip, Sarah! 🙌
Why pay for wood chips when you can get them delivered for free? A ton of Hip readers may be dealing with a similar situation and this smart tip is sure to help them out!
We’re so happy your garden is growing and thriving. We had never heard of ChipDrop before you wrote in to tell us about it and we are so happy that you did. We can’t wait to spread the word!
Looking for more freebies? We got ’em!
We love sharing all the latest freebies. Make sure to bookmark our Freebies page to catch the latest deals!
Plus, don’t forget to bookmark our Tips page where we post all our best money-saving tips and hacks!
Need gardening tips? Check out these posts…
- How to start a vegetable garden
- How to get free seeds for your garden
- DIY Raised Garden Bed Ideas (+ See How We Built Ours!)
- I’ve Used The Lettuce Grow Hydroponic Garden for 6 Months (Here’s My Honest Review)
- Plus, more garden deals and tips!
Thank you so much, Sarah! 🌻
We really appreciate you taking the time to write in and tell us about ChipDrop! We’re so happy your garden is blooming thanks to this handy freebie! Thanks, again, for writing in to us to share your knowledge! 💛 It was great to hear from you!
HAPPY FRIDAY! 
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I love this! Thanks for sharing. Please do more real life practical content like this. : )
Glad you enjoyed this reader’s fun and frugal idea, Jennifer! 🤗 Here’s the link to our “Tips” page the features even more ideas, if you haven’t checked those out. 🩷
That is awesome. We have to drive 3 miles to pick up our free mulch. Delivery sounds awesome.
It sure does, Pat! We have to drive a similar distance for ours as well. It’s nice to know the free option is there though! 🙌
Pat, in our area, the only thing you have to be prepared for is not being prepared, but free is free. Again, in our area, you put yourself on a list and hope they give you 24-48 hours’ notice, if not, you may find you return home from work and a load of mulch is sitting in your driveway.
Just a warning, they deliver a lot. Like a massive mound of tons. If you don’t have a lot of yard to put it in, it may not be for you. It is back breaking work to shovel it in a barrow and tote it to where you need it, over and over for days. That being said, we have done it, and I’d do it again because it was a great deal and we have a ton of space for it. Just be warned. Also, it may help to offer the $20 donation. I hear you are more likely to get selected by the woodchipper guys. Worked for us, and still an incredible savings
That’s interesting about the donation, I may have to tell my husband to try that. We signed up weeks ago but haven’t seen anything, and similar with others in our area who we know signed up. I’m wondering if our area is small enough that companies just aren’t aware of it yet.
Many commercial tree-trimming companies (and/or utility companies, e.g., those that trim trees away from electric power lines) are very glad to have somewhere close to drop their trimmings that they put through their moveable chipper. Occasionally I drive past a truck, that has workers taking down trees or branches. I’ve stopped and asked if they would like a place to unload the chips, and most are only too happy to have a nearby site.
I try to keep track of all the drops we’ve had in our driveway since we moved to our house 30+ years ago. It’s been at least 8 or 10 drops of at least 15 cubic yards of chips each time, including once from ChipDrop. (I try to be on the lookout every 3 years or so, [which is about how long it takes for the previous delivery to decompose], for a tree-trimming truck in action. One advantage of finding an active group of workers is that you can find out in advance what kinds of tree chips you may be receiving (and whether they are acceptable to you). The ChipDrop is potluck, so you really don’t know in advance what type of tree your chips might come from. And they delivered in the street near the curb, as I recall. For those reasons, one time with ChipDrop was enough for us, and I’ll continue to scout out chips in our neighborhood when I need them. Once we got a truckload of almost 50 cubic yards of chips delivered to us! It covered a most of the driveway, and took me about 3 weeks to distribute, one wheelbarrow load at a time…. Lots of work, and by this stage in life, I now try for a smaller delivery! Good luck!
How cool! Thanks for sharing how you’ve scored wood chips for your landscaping! Great tip!