Previous occupants planted a lot of very spiky bushes around our garden, the missus routinely chops bits off and leaves piles for me to clear.

I’m fed up of wrestling porcupines into the garden bag or the back of my car, even 2 pairs of gloves sees me perforated upto the elbows most times. Sticking it all through a shredder would be suitable vengeance, and hopefully quicker and less painful.

Any recommendations? The basic B&Q/screwfix type ones do upto 45mm diameter branches which would be sufficient, and cost less than £100. Are they up to the job though?

I use my lawn mower.

Don’t even have to clean stuff up off the garden. Works with stuff up to about half a centimetre in diameter

I borrowed one from a neighbour. It was a very frustrating experience, constantly unblocking it. Although the resultant pile was much, much smaller, it too ages!

I tried doing privet with one, I ended up just sawing it out at the root and leaving it for the council to pick up. Useless unless you’re doing tree branches IMO.

I recommend doing the same.

I have one, it’s the type witht he rotating cutter.

It’s been fine, get’s stuff down to a much smaller volume – typically one trip to the tip where I’d have needed four or five.

Only issue I’ve had is thin pieces of very green, ‘bendy’ wood as it tends to go through with just a few marks on it from the cutters or get jammed into them.

If you regularly end up taking large volumes of cut branches and bushes to the tip I’d recommend it.

(we have no green collection service round here).

I tried a large electric one (hired) which wasn’t up to the job.

Go for the proper petrol ones or burn it.

These work:

http://www.sam-turner.co.uk/garden_machinery/wolf-garten-sde2500evo-kit-electric-shredder-2500w-std.html?sel=24376&fo_c=603&fo_k=0c2196d1083852f8ea23e8b0337b7534&fo_s=gplauk&gclid=CKunjvexv8gCFRATGwod5OcHgg#.VhzxLRFVhBc

We’ve got a cheap b&q one and it works well. Funnilly enough it’s much happier with bigger branches than skinny leafy stuff but it will munch it. It blocks fairly easily if you let the blade stop, the secret is to keep it running and switch off at the end of the session. Step mum has a crusher one rather than a spinning blade which seems much less prone to blocking but it was much pricier. Pretty happy with our cheapy one and the produce is useful in the garden or easy to take to the dump.

I have a Bosch AXT 2000HP which is brilliant for some things and useless on others. I can pretty much fit a large shredded conifer excluding the trunk into a wheelie bin and it shreds easily but its useless on stringy thin stuff and ends up jamming. You get to learn what works and what doesn’t pretty quickly.
Mine is a screw type cutter that pulls the branches into it so its effortless really whereas my neighbour has a cheap one that just has a rotating blade and you have to force the branches into it and apply constant force to get it to chop. After watching him struggle no way would I want one of those.

I don’t really know much more than that but I will say that its been invaluable in reducing tip trips due to the wasted space that conifer branches create when loading a car or trailer.

Oh, and get some good loppers to cut the branches down to size.

Hired one from HSS when we wanted to clear a lot of the overgrown shrubs that the previous owners had left. Awesome bit of kit. I’d be worried that the cheaper ones might be a bit too lightweight for some of the bigger bits.

Can you put the chipped stuff onto borders as mulch?

Can you put the chipped stuff onto borders as mulch?

we do.

I bought one from Homebase for £90 IIRC and then fed an entire Sycamore tree into it (well everything 2″ or less in diameter).

[url=https://flic.kr/p/k9NPGe]Chipping the canopy[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

It was pretty shagged by the end, but did the job. I then gave it away to a friend who was clearing his garden. Biggest issue was getting shot of about 2 m3 of chippings, in the end some neighbours took them.

Previous owner left one here. I tried it for a short while but it seemed like a waste of time so I gave it away. Entry slot was so small I had to chop everything up tiny to use it. Might work ok on hedge clippings but I’m mostly pruning large woody stuff and taking down ivy. It did chop ok but getting the stuff in was a slow and tedious process.

Now I just put the woody waste in builders’ bags and take them down to the local tip which is about a 3 min drive. I don’t really see how wrestling spiky stuff into a shredder would help you.

I was given one by my dad about a year ago.

agree with the above comments that if you stop it running it jams….easily bypassed by prepping all the cuttings first (cutting down with loppers) and shredding it all in one batch (i’m usually far to impatient and get her fired up before I’ve finished the pruning session!)

The chippings are a great mulch…I spread it over all our borders….probably a little to coarse to go on the compost heap though unless you have a coarse sieve.