Shredders

CelticRambler

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

For a full garden clearance it would be tedious, better just to stockpile the stuff and hire a professional unit to run through it in one go. The Lidl one is great for ongoing maintenance, cures the boredom of chopping stuff up small for the compost.

It all depends on the timescale and the size of the garden. If you're going to attack the job with a full week of good weather ahead of you, a complete set of working chainsaws and strimmers and lops and rakes and maybe a few helpers, then yes, blitz the place, heap everything up and get a big, fast machine in to pulverise it at the end of the project.

But if you have an acre to clear on your own, and have to fit that work around dozens of other commitments and uncooperative weather, there's every chance that the piles of clippings and prunings you've made will have collapsed on themselves and be invaded by brambles and blackthorn long before you've amassed enough material to justify hiring a semi-professional machine.

My garden clearance (5000m²) has gone a heck of a lot faster since I spent the 90€ in Lidl, mainly because I no longer have piles of woody branches decomposing for months in a spot that seemed convenient at the time only to become the target area of my latest project. Now, if I get a single day that I can dedicate to clearing the next 100m², I know the job will be 100% finished by sunset because the shredder is immediately available to turn those piles into chips and leave the space ready for mowing or digging or paving or re-planting or whatever. For me at least, the psychological benefit of knowing that there isn't an unfinished part of the job (hidden somewhere) more than compensates for the couple of hours spent feeding branches into the slot.

looksee

We are clearing an acre, a good deal of which was brambles and both fallen wood and surplus overgrown shrubs and a few trees (willows and sycamores mostly, dammit). We do mince a lot of stuff, clearing and shredding goes on pretty much simultaneously. You recognise the stuff that will make really nice mulch, but some of it looks kinda rubbishing even when it is chopped. This goes into 'the heap'.

The heap is a huge - as in about 6/7m x 4m area that was outlined with large chopped down stuff, mostly willow, roughly staked, and woven together as we went along. This has taken large bits of old tree trunks/branches from all round the site, large soft growth - mountains of nettles, briars, strimming stuff, and currently it has been 'full' a couple of times but has continued to settle and we have added some grass clippings (it will be the home for grass clippings in the future) and the scruffier chippings, leaves, weeds, all sorts goes into it. Every now and again it needs someone to get up and trample and do a bit of rearranging.

As it has filled up we have reinforced and tidied the sides and it looks reasonably inoffensive, even though it is up against a boundary in a fairly obvious place. We have put a couple of plants/shrubs in front of it but it is by no means hidden. It will take a long time to rot but eventually we see it just becoming a natural large rise in the scenery that will grow stuff we can just keep strimmed as necessary. I have some honeysuckle and wild rose slips growing that can be planted round it. It has been a blessing, it would have been impossible to build enough 'normal' size compost heaps, and most of the early stuff was way too big anyway.

We also have a large wildlife corner of big dead branches with briars and nettles, which was cleared out but reassembled and is returning to nature. That will stay. Apart from one more corner which we haven't attacked yet, we have more or less got to the end of the serious clearing.

Sorry, this has gone OT for shredders, it seemed relevant when I started!

The Continental Op

Theres a lot to be said for stacking all thin woody material along with weeds in a sort of mini hayrick. Supposed to be great for wildlife. I know a few larger historic gardens do this rather than burning which was always the main stay of getting rid of anything unwanted and woody.

CelticRambler

looksee wrote: »

Apart from one more corner which we haven't attacked yet, we have more or less got to the end of the serious clearing.

Sorry, this has gone OT for shredders, it seemed relevant when I started!

Not entirely OT as you've hightlighted both the benefits and limitations of the machine, and having it available as and when needed.

With regard to the other sentence though ... :pac: :pac: :pac: That's what I thought, about three years ago. Last month, I started re-clearing the area that I cleared ten years ago then took my eye off for a bit ... This particular area is nearly all woody, contorted, thorny stuff - completely unsuitable for shredding. I'm using a mini-digger rip it out and I'm heaping it up in one spot to rot down, much as you're doing, but with the deliberate intention of making it into a hügelkultur-type bank.

looksee

CelticRambler wrote: »

but with the deliberate intention of making it into a hügelkultur-type bank.

That is exactly where we started, with the hugelkultur thing, but that kind of got lost along the way and it will take so long to rot down - and we have chucked so many bramble and nettle roots on it - I don't see us ever growing anything on it! Its only going a year though and judging by the way that it settles it might end up as a growing bed, Its more likely to be a general wild area.

Its about 3-4 foot deep/high overall at the moment. There is a great view from it as it is now level with the top of the ditch/wall/patchy field-hedge, looking towards fields and a mountain.

ednwireland

might have to buy the stihl ghe355 one ........