Garden shredders
Discussion
I’ve read mixed things about these, don’t suppose anyone can recommend a reasonable quality one without breaking the bank, say £200ish top whack?
We recently moved out into the sticks and we’ve got quite a few large trees in the vicinity, a hawthorn hedge and such like and something that can really chew up the smaller branches etc. without jamming for fun would be very handy.
We recently moved out into the sticks and we’ve got quite a few large trees in the vicinity, a hawthorn hedge and such like and something that can really chew up the smaller branches etc. without jamming for fun would be very handy.
I have an older version of one of these https://www.bosch-diy.com/gb/en/garden-tools/shred... and it does fine on the sort of woody stuff you get fron cutting back hedges, pruning trees etc. I actually got rid of a larger noisier pertol-powered one because it didn't do as good a job.
Huzzah said:
W
Where shredders are concerned the old adage 'go big or go home' applies.
Fully agree with this. I got a macillster shredder for doing the garden during lockdown and trimming the trees/bushes every year since. I usually get a suitably large pile, say 2m x 2m x 2m. It takes me a good few days to get through it. I'm looking to invest in a proper wood chipper, not quite a professional one but one not far off that.Where shredders are concerned the old adage 'go big or go home' applies.
So yeah go as large as you can afford!
I've had this for about 8 years now: https://www.bosch-diy.com/gb/en/p/axt-rapid-2200-0...
Works well on general garden cuttings up to about 35mm/40mm diameter. I have had to change the cutter once and the brushes in the motor once but it was quite simple to do both and spares are not expensive.
You do need to put a bag/box beneath the outlet to collect the cuttings. I use an Ikea blue bag as it fits well and the straps hook nicely onto the sides.
Works well on general garden cuttings up to about 35mm/40mm diameter. I have had to change the cutter once and the brushes in the motor once but it was quite simple to do both and spares are not expensive.
You do need to put a bag/box beneath the outlet to collect the cuttings. I use an Ikea blue bag as it fits well and the straps hook nicely onto the sides.
I have a cheap cheaper from Lidl or Screwfix can’t remember which. Cost less than £150 I think. It’s one with a collection box that slides in to place.
I have had it several years it gets abused with use on occasions. It can get grumpy if too bushy branches are put through it but most of the time it works faultlessly. I got it instead of a green bin. Shred stuff and depending what it is either put the shredded items in the compost bin or a pile to use as mulch.
The branches that are too big to go through it either get get up for the fire or taken to the tip.
The machine works really well, well worth every penny, when it dies I’ll buy a new one.
I have had it several years it gets abused with use on occasions. It can get grumpy if too bushy branches are put through it but most of the time it works faultlessly. I got it instead of a green bin. Shred stuff and depending what it is either put the shredded items in the compost bin or a pile to use as mulch.
The branches that are too big to go through it either get get up for the fire or taken to the tip.
The machine works really well, well worth every penny, when it dies I’ll buy a new one.
I've a lot of trees and bushes and I've got a cheapo hand-me down McAllister 3kw-ish one that was originally from B&Q. It's really taken a beating and keeps on going. You just have to not over-feed it and let it chomp through stuff at it's own pace. For reference, I've also got an old 15hp Posch commercial chipper that's demonically possessed and both have got their place.
i got this: https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttshr2800-2800w-2... for £100 with a voucher when there was a sale on. I'm only using it to strip down photinia/laurel hedge trimmings, albeit some of the woody bits are 2" thick.
Given i'm only managing ~50m of hedging, i can tolerate the fact that greenery clogs it up and you almost ending up cutting down or feeding things in piece by piece. If i was maintaining more or using it more frequently then i'd have lost patience already. It's not that it can't handle the shredding, it just can't get in the feeder well enough without getting blocked.
I'd echo what has already been said - go big or go home. Maybe try to find ex-commercial equipment locally?
Given i'm only managing ~50m of hedging, i can tolerate the fact that greenery clogs it up and you almost ending up cutting down or feeding things in piece by piece. If i was maintaining more or using it more frequently then i'd have lost patience already. It's not that it can't handle the shredding, it just can't get in the feeder well enough without getting blocked.
I'd echo what has already been said - go big or go home. Maybe try to find ex-commercial equipment locally?
I have one of these, bought from ebay for crica £50 last year. Also bought a genuine blade from Bosch and it just chewed through everything that fits in the top hole.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/146906249535?_skw=bosch...
This is not my ebay listing, it was the first unit that popped up when getting an example.
From what i read anything other than a genuine Bosch blade, will just be s
t.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/146906249535?_skw=bosch...
This is not my ebay listing, it was the first unit that popped up when getting an example.
From what i read anything other than a genuine Bosch blade, will just be s
t. The little electric hobbies are, in my experience, useless for anything much thicker than twigs. Endless jams or clogging. We’ve got a half acre of garden and our Bosch couldn’t cope and I sold it.
My b-i-l has a honking big petrol powered “Bear Claw” thing that you can stick trees in. That’s more like it.
As someone above said - unless your chucking twigs in, go big or go home.
My b-i-l has a honking big petrol powered “Bear Claw” thing that you can stick trees in. That’s more like it.
As someone above said - unless your chucking twigs in, go big or go home.
zalrak said:
I've had this for about 8 years now: https://www.bosch-diy.com/gb/en/p/axt-rapid-2200-0...
Works well on general garden cuttings up to about 35mm/40mm diameter. I have had to change the cutter once and the brushes in the motor once but it was quite simple to do both and spares are not expensive.
You do need to put a bag/box beneath the outlet to collect the cuttings. I use an Ikea blue bag as it fits well and the straps hook nicely onto the sides.
YES to this one too - anything up to thumb sized sticks, no trouble. Quite satisfying too.Works well on general garden cuttings up to about 35mm/40mm diameter. I have had to change the cutter once and the brushes in the motor once but it was quite simple to do both and spares are not expensive.
You do need to put a bag/box beneath the outlet to collect the cuttings. I use an Ikea blue bag as it fits well and the straps hook nicely onto the sides.
fiatpower said:
Huzzah said:
W
Where shredders are concerned the old adage 'go big or go home' applies.
Fully agree with this. I got a macillster shredder for doing the garden during lockdown and trimming the trees/bushes every year since. I usually get a suitably large pile, say 2m x 2m x 2m. It takes me a good few days to get through it. I'm looking to invest in a proper wood chipper, not quite a professional one but one not far off that.Where shredders are concerned the old adage 'go big or go home' applies.
So yeah go as large as you can afford!
Huzzah said:
We've a cheapo from screwfix.
Pretty useless TBH, anything green clogs it up & woody stuff takes ages, one piece at a time.
Where shredders are concerned the old adage 'go big or go home' applies.
This is my experience too.Pretty useless TBH, anything green clogs it up & woody stuff takes ages, one piece at a time.
Where shredders are concerned the old adage 'go big or go home' applies.
We have a load of ivy that grows over a wall adjoining our front garden. Every couple of years it needs hacking back, I borrowed a Bosch shredder off a mate to try to shred the cuttings, it used to just clog up all the time, mainly not coping with the waste being so fresh. I get the feeling the cope better with drier, more brittle input.
I've found the far more efficient method is to forget shredding and just buy a few of those collapsible green waste sacks from Amazon, fill them as much as I can, get my 10yo to jump in them from time to time to help compress the contents, then drive them to the tip and empty into the green waste section.
https://amzn.eu/d/3ZOddaq
I have a 2kW electric 'garden shredder'.
It is good for certain things.
It reduces a big pile of hedge cutting fallout to a pile of shredded stuff, leaving behind a small pile of stuff that's big enough to go to a woodburner and a small pile of stuff that it won't shred effectively.
It's good at fairly straight, fairly woody sticks.
Anything reasonably stiff from 6mm hazel rods up to about 30mm branches, including a lot of laurel.
Not good at curly stuff with lots of branches. e.g. various thorn bushes.
Not great with soft leafy stuff. It might have been better when new, to be fair.
If you want to eat small trees you need a 10hp petrol chipper.
Personally, I've found my shredder to be very useful.
The stuff it's not great at, I attack with a hedge trimmer rather than take off whole branches.
The green or leafy stuff we compost.
What comes out of the shredder, we compost, or use as mulch.
Some stuff we just take to the dump, if we're passing that way.
It's a good tool, but it's only part of a system to deal with the hedges etc.
It is good for certain things.
It reduces a big pile of hedge cutting fallout to a pile of shredded stuff, leaving behind a small pile of stuff that's big enough to go to a woodburner and a small pile of stuff that it won't shred effectively.
It's good at fairly straight, fairly woody sticks.
Anything reasonably stiff from 6mm hazel rods up to about 30mm branches, including a lot of laurel.
Not good at curly stuff with lots of branches. e.g. various thorn bushes.
Not great with soft leafy stuff. It might have been better when new, to be fair.
If you want to eat small trees you need a 10hp petrol chipper.
Personally, I've found my shredder to be very useful.
The stuff it's not great at, I attack with a hedge trimmer rather than take off whole branches.
The green or leafy stuff we compost.
What comes out of the shredder, we compost, or use as mulch.
Some stuff we just take to the dump, if we're passing that way.
It's a good tool, but it's only part of a system to deal with the hedges etc.
We've got a couple. Bought the one at my OH's house when we took the shed down and had a massive pile of ivy to dispose of. Since then it's gone through a lot of trimmings from trees, etc. It's starting to get a bit tired two years later, but it was only a £90 Einhell on Amazon. Have another one at my house I bought from Screwfix, a Hyundai. It's noticeably better than the old one, you don't have to push the branches in, it pulls them, which is what the old one used to be like. I suspect that it's just wear on the blades, but also suspect that getting parts for the really cheapo ones might be a non-starter.
Both houses have fairly small gardens. At mine, there is a pollarded sycamore at the end of the garden which generates most of the stuff that goes through the shredder, which it copes with well. At my OH's, there is a big lime tree and a yew that I've taken a lot of material off and shredded, and a big conifer overhanging from next door that they were happy for me to cut back. Then it's just cuttings from the bay tree, roses, etc. If we had a bigger garden, I'd probably want something beefier, and there is a fairly low limit on the thickness of branches the little shredders will deal with, but for stuff I'm taking off with telescopic loppers it's generally fine.
I find it convenient to be able to deal with this stuff on site rather than having to get rid of it, and it's really good for the compost to have more shredded wood to go in with the grass clippings etc. They don't like a load of leafy stuff, it clogs them up. So I tend to take that off, spread it on the lawn, and run it over with the mower. Anything that's left gets shredded, but mostly the mower munches it.
Both houses have fairly small gardens. At mine, there is a pollarded sycamore at the end of the garden which generates most of the stuff that goes through the shredder, which it copes with well. At my OH's, there is a big lime tree and a yew that I've taken a lot of material off and shredded, and a big conifer overhanging from next door that they were happy for me to cut back. Then it's just cuttings from the bay tree, roses, etc. If we had a bigger garden, I'd probably want something beefier, and there is a fairly low limit on the thickness of branches the little shredders will deal with, but for stuff I'm taking off with telescopic loppers it's generally fine.
I find it convenient to be able to deal with this stuff on site rather than having to get rid of it, and it's really good for the compost to have more shredded wood to go in with the grass clippings etc. They don't like a load of leafy stuff, it clogs them up. So I tend to take that off, spread it on the lawn, and run it over with the mower. Anything that's left gets shredded, but mostly the mower munches it.
There are two sorts of domestic garden shredder.
Mine is a motor with two blades on a disc spinning around.
The other sort, marketed as 'quiet' and the like, are more like a gearwheel that crushes stuff against a fixed plate.
With mine, it pays to keep the blades sharp. I have a wet bench grinder for this. I also give it a good squirt of WD40 or whatever on the blades before putting it away.
The quiet sort are perhaps better with some vegetation, my neighbour has one, it's OK, but I don't know if you can sharpen or maintain them?
It does deal with green stuff that would choke mine, but then mine is not the best of its genre, I paid £20 for it about 7 years ago IIRC.
Mine is a motor with two blades on a disc spinning around.
The other sort, marketed as 'quiet' and the like, are more like a gearwheel that crushes stuff against a fixed plate.
With mine, it pays to keep the blades sharp. I have a wet bench grinder for this. I also give it a good squirt of WD40 or whatever on the blades before putting it away.
The quiet sort are perhaps better with some vegetation, my neighbour has one, it's OK, but I don't know if you can sharpen or maintain them?
It does deal with green stuff that would choke mine, but then mine is not the best of its genre, I paid £20 for it about 7 years ago IIRC.
OutInTheShed said:
There are two sorts of domestic garden shredder.
With mine, it pays to keep the blades sharp. I have a wet bench grinder for this. I also give it a good squirt of WD40 or whatever on the blades before putting it away.
That's interesting. May have to see if mine can be disassembled.With mine, it pays to keep the blades sharp. I have a wet bench grinder for this. I also give it a good squirt of WD40 or whatever on the blades before putting it away.
SImilar issues at Neptune towers; a hugely overgrown garden that generated (still does) a lot of munchable waste.
Thread on here recommended a Stihll or VIking.
Found a Viking GE355 shredder on FB Marketplace.
10/10 would recommend. Will cheerfully munch anything up to 40mm. Will do green as well as woody, trick is to under-load it (don't just fill the chute). You'll be bored or tired before it's had enough.
Do NOT stand directly behind it; there's branches on next doors roof which get spat out of the top if they're too big.
Does jam occasionally but now i've learnt less is more it's brilliant. Set up next to whatever is about to be obliterated, feed it in as it gets cut.
Saved a fortune in skips, most of the mulch goes on the garden. Think I paid about £200.
Thread on here recommended a Stihll or VIking.
Found a Viking GE355 shredder on FB Marketplace.
10/10 would recommend. Will cheerfully munch anything up to 40mm. Will do green as well as woody, trick is to under-load it (don't just fill the chute). You'll be bored or tired before it's had enough.
Do NOT stand directly behind it; there's branches on next doors roof which get spat out of the top if they're too big.
Does jam occasionally but now i've learnt less is more it's brilliant. Set up next to whatever is about to be obliterated, feed it in as it gets cut.
Saved a fortune in skips, most of the mulch goes on the garden. Think I paid about £200.
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