I have been using a mix of gravel in some places and grass in others for the paths.
But am just swapping over to wood chips.
I hadn't thought about the fungi aspect of the wood chips. That does make a lot of sense.
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Wood chips are really great--the only real downside I have found is having to top it up occasionally. But generally this is not a big deal.
Last year I found a bunch of morel mushrooms coming up in my wood chips. I'm hoping for some this year and I spread some winecap mushroom spawn around so I'm hoping those show up too. The fungal side is a big reason why I love wood chips.
Thanks for the comment!
Do you have any issue with slugs living in the woodchips?
I don't--it seems like the slugs don't like wood chips. But they do show up in my leaves. But in both cases I have found that the things that eat slugs or their eggs like a large type of black ground beetle do seem to like the wood chips. Whenever I mulch areas I see less slugs but more of the predators. The slugs never go away but the impact is less. Here is a video that dives into it a bit:
Hmm.. the text went away. My experience is that slugs go down in number as I mulch. The video goes into some reasons that I think apply to my garden too. Just the first part of the video is about slugs and wood chips. But basically the idea is that wood chips help the critters that eat the slugs. There might be some other reasons too that the video goes into.
That is very interesting about the predators. I am going to start looking for them to see if I notice a difference.