Do bark chippings blow away?

[Tisy]

Are bark chippings heavy enough to stay in place under their own weight when spread over an uncontained flat area or do they easily blow away in the wind? A neighbour has put down a thick black plastic roll over approx 6 m2 to kill the weeds and is intending to get a dumpy bag of bark chippings to spread over the top of it. There is only a gapped fence at one side and the house at the other side - the other 2 sides are uncontained and go onto communal wasteland. It can get quite breezy here when it is calm everywhere else - so there's a bit of a wind tunnel effect, and I have a suspicion his chippings are going to end up in a pile some distance away on a windy day .

Also related - I have neighbours with cats and they like the take a massive st in the soft soil in the planters if they think nobody is watching. Are the cats likely to use the bark chippings to take a st in too or do they not bother with it? Anyone here got bark chippings in their garden?

[xx99xx]

They will not blow away. Not that I've experienced anyway.

Cats may well use it as a toilet. Although they tend to stick to their usual areas where they feel safe.

[Oberheim]

I’ve had bark chippings on a border in possibly the breeziest area of my garden for years and they always stay put. The only thing that shifts a few chippings is blackbirds tossing them around in their daily hunt for invertebrates (good) and cats toileting in the area (not good). The cats have been known to take a couple of blackbirds too. Wish they would just fk off elsewhere.

[Riley Blue]

In the seven years we had bark chippings on a border adjacent to a public footpath we never had any blow away, neither did the local cats use them as a toilet - they used our front lawn instead

[nammynake]

In our case, yes. But only in very high winds like during winter storms. As above the blackbirds create far more mess as they toss them aside looking for juicy worms underneath.

[WelshRich]

I suspect that the black plastic will be the problem (if it’s actually plastic rather than a membrane). Wood chips tend to mush down a bit and clump together/to the soil but are more likely to spread around and blow away if they’re not in contact with the ground…

[Oberheim]

Riley Blue said:

In the seven years we had bark chippings on a border adjacent to a public footpath we never had any blow away, neither did the local cats use them as a toilet - they used our front lawn instead

Yes, my front lawn is also a popular site for pussy patties. Not the back lawn though, or the flower beds, strangely; out back they only like to coil them out into the bark chippings. Not a major fan of domestic felines if I’m honest. The unloading of foul excreta into my garden is one thing but seeing them sprinting out of my garden with a blackbird in their mouth really boils my urine. Yeah, I know cats can’t help being cats, it’s in their nature, etc, but I wish they weren’t so numerous.

[Colonel Cupcake]

Our next door neighbour put some wood chippings down. They don't move in the wind but there is a queue of cats on the fence every morning, waiting to drop one. Thing is, he has a dog and it seems to get the blame for all the poo.

[Tisy]

Thanks all.

WelshRich said:

I suspect that the black plastic will be the problem (if it s actually plastic rather than a membrane). Wood chips tend to mush down a bit and clump together/to the soil but are more likely to spread around and blow away if they re not in contact with the ground

Yes, it's a shiny black plastic sheet/roll and fairly rigid so whatever you put on it slides around with ease. The chippings won't be in contact with the soil hence my suspicion that it won't be long until they are no longer on top of the sheet and end up scattered elsewhere around the garden .

[Zetec-S]

Unlikely, but not impossible from my experience. The only time I've seen it is the neighbour opposite on a corner plot put them down, but it was a fairly exposed corner and the narrow street down the side tended to funnel the wind. If the wind was strong enough and from the right direction it would take a bit off. Unfortunately our driveway/garage was the "dumping point" for this wind tunnel, so would accumulate most of the bark.

In the end they swapped the bark for old fashioned lawn again.

[Tisy]

The "wood chippings" turned up this morning and he's spread them all over. Its' been breezy up here today but nothing crazy. A good amount of the stuff has blown off the sheet into the soil border already . I looked it at closer and just looks like the shredded remains of someone's garden after a tidy up of the hedges, weeds and bushes. Half of it looks to be nettle leaves and bits of the bramble and the wood chippings are clearly just from twigs and very small branches as there's no 'meat' to any of it. It's not like those big-ass chunks of bark you see on kids' play parks, for example. I reckon if the wind doesn't blow it all away first then the next decent rain we have will turn that into a slimy paste and wash it away. What a total waste of time !!

[SoulGlo]

Tisy said:

The "wood chippings" turned up this morning and he's spread them all over. Its' been breezy up here today but nothing crazy. A good amount of the stuff has blown off the sheet into the soil border already . I looked it at closer and just looks like the shredded remains of someone's garden after a tidy up of the hedges, weeds and bushes. Half of it looks to be nettle leaves and bits of the bramble and the wood chippings are clearly just from twigs and very small branches as there's no 'meat' to any of it. It's not like those big-ass chunks of bark you see on kids' play parks, for example. I reckon if the wind doesn't blow it all away first then the next decent rain we have will turn that into a slimy paste and wash it away. What a total waste of time !!

Where did you get this from? So I don't make the same mistake!

I'm after the same chunky stuff you get in kid play parks as you said.