Linda’s Serenity Garden has taken every inch of the front and backyards of our home. The only grass area’s left this Spring where the walkways.  When we needed to replace our lawn mower that tiny bit of grass did not justify purchasing a new mower.

We were planing to dig up the grass sod and then put down cedar wood chips as a walking surface. The arborist suggested that we use the chipped debris from the five trees he just removed from the south property line.  His suggestion would eliminate the labor of digging up the sod! Yeah!  The arborist recommended covering  the sod with the chipped debri at least four inches thick. We followed his advice and spread the chips over the  walkways.  Within two months, the chips had killed all of the grass and the chips had compressed down to less then 2 inches high.

However, the chips included the needles and branches from the evergreen trees and did not have the eye appeal we wanted.

I went to the local bark supply firm and brought home a load of cedar wood chips. I spread the cedar wood chips right over the first layer.  The appeal of the garden was transformed! The uniform color of the chips and the fullness of the covering of the walkways made the garden look complete. You can judge from the photos.

Walk way of grass between shrubbery.

REA Express wagon from above photo with new cedar wood chips layed down in the walkway. Compare the differance in looks.

Linda on a small grass walkway under the bird feeders, holding a friends puppy.

Prepairing the garden and walkways May 2010

Supplies and Materal need, woodchips, wheelbarrow & flat shovel. I found the short handle shovel was a lot easier to work with than the long handle shovel.

Here I am starting to cover the orginal wood chip base with the new cedar wood chips. The differance in the apperance between the two types of chips is quite striking.

Cedar chips on walkway to the green house

Walkway where Linda was on the grass holding the puppy with grass replaced by the new cedar wood chips.