Can You Get Splinters From Mulch?

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If you want to add some nutrients to your garden, wood chip mulch can be a fantastic option, but is it possible to get splinters from wood mulch?

According to self-reports, people absolutely can get splinters from wood chipping mulch. Although the splinters may get softer as they decompose, until the wood completely rots into compost, it has the potential to give someone splinters.

That is not the only problem with wood chip mulch that can happen, and we’ll cover a few of the other disadvantages of wood chip mulch below, but first, how dangerous are wood chip splinters?

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What Happens If I Get a Splinter from Mulch?

If you get a splinter from your wood chip mulch, then how bad is that? Is it worse than splinters in other materials?

Well, a splinter can often be ignored if it is small and painless, whatever material it is. However, some materials aren’t considered very worrying to get a splinter of, such as:

Glass
Plastic
Metal

But the organic matter is a little different – and a bit more worrying to have stuck underneath your skin. Vegetation splinters can carry bacteria and fungi, which can cause a horrible reaction. Even rose thorns can be coated in Sporothrix, a fungus that can end up being quite dangerous if left alone.

Therefore, if you get a splinter from your wood mulch, it could be doubly dangerous as mulch is often in contact with the dirt and the bacteria therein.

If you get a splinter, then there are a few tips that you can follow to try and get it out:

If the head is poking out, then find a pair of tweezers, grab the tip and pull the splinter out.
If the head is poking out, but it is very delicate, try putting a bit of medical tape or other adhesives on the splinters, then pull the tape off to take the splinter out.
Try washing the area if the splinter isn’t poking out – that might do something to get it out.

If it is still stuck in, with no head out, take a sterile needle and gently scrape away the skin on the top until a head is available.

It is a good rule of thumb that if you have a splinter, you can get it out of your skin; whatever the material, you probably should. Splinters are usually nothing to worry about as long as you can get them out and wash the area.

But you should seek medical assistance for a splinter if one of the following occurs:

It is too deep to get out
It breaks into pieces if you try to take it out
It is located underneath your nails, either fingernails or toenails

It unduly hurts – more than it should
It is red and swollen, and you suspect it might be infected.

And splinters aren’t the only problem that might come from wood chippings:

Problems Which Can Come from Wood Chips

The first thing that should be noted is that there is nothing wrong with mulching if done correctly, but a certain number of problems can arise if applied incorrectly.

Here are a few of the problems which can happen:

If mulch is laid too close to the stems of a plant, then it may cause them to soften through excessive moisture, which makes it vulnerable to fungi and other ailments.

If the mulch layer is too thin, it may fail in its goal of blocking the sunlight from weeds and preventing them from growing.
You need to make sure you get mulch from a place you trust; bad quality mulch may introduce pests, diseases, and weeds to the garden (for wood chips, in particular, there is a small risk of them bringing in an ailment called honey fungus)
Wood chips might cause microorganisms to use nitrogen reserves, leaving less for your plants to use.

How To Apply Mulch Correctly?

So, if applying mulch is so finicky, what is the correct way to do it? Well, here are our recommendations for applying mulch:

Organic and biodegradable mulches ideally should be between two inches and three inches thick
Give the stem of a tree or shrubs a few inches berth as well – as far as the canopy, as a rule of thumb.

Water the soil, remove weeds and lay mulches over the top after you have
Make sure the soil is somewhat warm when you lay the mulch – at the very least, it shouldn’t be frozen.
When you’re planting new beds, planting through mulch sheets is the best way to go about it.

As the wood chips decompose, they will provide nutrients for the soil. It’ll feed microorganisms and plants alike, and you won’t have to add fertilizer as much continually.
Ground covering plants, like moss, might be best left without mulching as it already holds too much moisture in itself; moss can be used as a replacement for mulch for other plants.
The wood chips might need replacing at least once a year just to make sure it is still in a thick enough layer to do their job.

You must source the wood chips from a good source to ensure they are free of diseases and other pests.
Keep in mind that wood chips may be able to be easily sourced from somewhere local to you from logging companies and the like, but they won’t necessarily be uniform in either size or color.
Mulch is best laid in established beds when the soil is cool but not warm and somewhat moist. This makes the middle to late spring when weeds haven’t germinated, and many plants are dormant.

Newly planted beds can be – and in fact, benefit – from being mulched as soon as possible, no matter what time of year, as they benefit most from the moisture retention in the soil and weed suppression.

Why Add Wood Chip Mulch?

With all these problems we’ve listed, you might be wondering why you’d bother putting it down, so to balance it out a little bit, here are some of the advantages of adding wood chips to your garden:

You will need to water your garden less, as mulches retain water for longer after a watering

It covers the soil from sunlight and starves the weeds, which can stop them from growing.
It will improve the nutrient content of the soil.
It may deter some pests.

Mulches can defend plants from extreme weather – keeping the soil warmer in cold weather and keeping it cooler in hot weather.
It encourages a healthy microorganism biome.
It will provide a barrier for some edible plants not to have to come in contact with the soil and keep them cleaner – such as strawberries.

It can give your garden the perfect aesthetic, giving it more of a forest floor-esque, natural look rather than bare soil.

Conclusion

Overall, it is possible to get a splinter from wood chip mulch, and, as with any wood splinter, take it out yourself, if possible, but it’s nothing to worry about until you think it might be infected.

Other problems involve wood chip mulches, such as introducing pests and diseases into your garden or making the plant stems softer and prone to infections. But some would argue that the benefits of mulches still outweigh the disadvantages.

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