Wood Shavings as Mulch?

Hi,
Can I use wood shavings as mulch? I have access to alot and was wondering if I could use them. Do they have to be treated or anything?
TIA,
SYR36

They just need to be dried out and aged. Anything green will burn them.

Also be cautious about where the shavings come from. If it was from treated lumber, you may not want it in your plants.

I used it in the shade garden where the azaleas and other acidic soil plants are and it worked great but is pretty light and will blow all over if it isn't watered in really well! And unlike the chips and bark it breaks down really fast. Another point is that the neighbors chickens just cannot resist coming over to scratch in it so I have gone back to chips!

Make sure there weren't poison ivy vines growing up them thar trees, too -- yikes! ;o)

Actually, they are from my uncle's woodshop. Mostly oak shavings and some pine..... I would like to use them as a quick temporary mulch. So what do you all think about it now? They will be on flowers only I don't grow vegies.

Thanks,
SYR36

Hubby says he has heard that oak shavings tend to extract nitrigon out of the soil. People at a local gardening radio program say the hardwood mulch is not good. Pine should be ok probably.

SYR, you said a temporary mulch, and I think that's key - don't count on the shavings lasting a long time, and be sure to compensate for the inevitable nitrogen loss (as they decompose, they'll take nitrogen from the soil.) Just plan to replace them in a year or so, as they will have rotted by then. The good news is the rotted wood will help create better soil over the long run, similar to what happens in nature when trees fall and rot.

You might want to side-dress your plants with a slow-release fertilizer before you apply the mulch, and keep the mulch an inch or better from the stem of your plants.

I would use only shavings to mulch, and not sawdust. If you have a compost pile, the sawdust can be a "brown" in there (assuming you have enough "greens" to compensate.)

Have plenty of greens ... just wanted to know if i could use it for now as we haven't gotten alot of rain.

I want to mulch later on, just wanted a temporary solution right now but don't want to kill the plants either....
I know sawdust would clump too much to use and i don't like to breathe it anyways...

Acutally in the fall i want to do a heavier mulch with hardwood... it works great here and the beds are new beds. I had also planned on the fertilizer...

Elena is right. Wood products ie: sawdust, wood shavings, wood chips will take large amounts of nitrogen from the soil as they decay. If you use these type of mulches be sure to add extra N to compensate for the lost N.

Paul

We have a furniture maker here and he has a lot of sawdust and shavings. He has a vacuum system in his shop that sucks all the suff out and deposits in a little shed that looks something like an outhouse. You can open the door and shovel it right out. Woe unto me; I shoveled out Walnut shavings and killed a lot of stuff. Be sure you avoid Walnut; it's toxic to almost everything

I used sawdust several years ago from a lumber yard that makes wooden pallets and the next year where the sawdust was placed I had termites everywhere. I didn't use around plants just to fill in some washed areas. Wish I had spend a little more and gotten top soil. Jim

Hear a lot of pro's and con's about wood shavings/sawdust/
chips/bark. I was told by Univ. Ga. extension office
NOT to use ANY green wood, especially Pine. Use NO wood
around foundation of house. Use only cured wood as mulch
around plants. I have been using pine needles around the
house foundation and cured Hickory chips around all my trees/shrubbery for several years. I see no adverse
effects and will use the Hickory again this fall.