When I had 5 acres in the country and I saw they were clearing the power lines I saw them grouped up one moring at the truck stop getting ready to head out. I stopped and told them they could unload in my field. They were sooooo happy! I ended up with at least 60 yards of wood mulch! All delivered. All free! I never even got to use it all before I moved

One note of caution: it's fine to do this once but in general the healthiest for plants and trees is bark mulch. This kind of comes from mills that strip trees for lumber process.

Judy - Maybe in a wet environment yea, but I've been using mulch on my yard for the past .. hmm.. 8? years and never had a problem with standard mulch. I personally don't like bark mulch, to me, it's ugly. I have to spot mulch yearly and redo my entire yard every 3-5 years. I've found that my yard, being in a very dry, xeric environment, benefits GREATLY from heavy mulching.. when I first bought my property, I could grow tumbleweeds & pigweed & thistles and that was about it without having to water every single day. Now? I have over 300 rose bushes, shrubs, trees... and worms! Lots & lots of worms! I didn't have worm one when I first got my home in 2005. Personally I prefer cedar mulch as it lasts the longest, but it's also the most expensive ($41/cy not including delivery), so that's why I contact tree companies. Locally grown trees seem to work the best for ground cover.. plus you don't have to worry about funky dyes or pesticides or antifungals or whatever!

Heh, we had our trees trimmed about 6 years ago and at that time the trimmers were so delighted to be able to dump their load of wood chips in our lower field that they gave us a discount on the trimming. THIS year, however, we practically had to beg them to dump the chips from our own trees. Looks like lots of people have figured out how to get free mulch.

The city of Austin collects all the discarded Christmas trees each year and mulches them. Residents can pick up as much as they wish until it's gone.
We're about to get our trees trimmed. I think I'll ask them to leave me a few piles of chips. Wish I had more room for a big pile! It's a great idea.

Bubbles - That's a good thing if you don't mind the pH going down on your soil.. I noticed that in the past with using a lot of pine chippings in my back yard.

We live on a limestone outcropping. It makes very alkaline soil. We're continually adding mulch, as well as soil, since it leeches down into the rock. Constant battle.

Bubbles - Ooh, but you could definitely grow some beautiful hydrangeas...

One word of caution! If you live in an area that has palm trees, make sure to specify NO PALMS or you will be pulling palm trees forever.

? Palms? Don't palm trees produce like coconuts or something?

There are lots of different palms, and they all have some sort of seed.!