Chipper-Shredder Buying Guide

A decent electric or petrol chipper/shredder is a must-have for the serious gardener. These labour-saving devices not only allow you to keep your garden free of leaves, twigs and other organic debris with minimum effort, but also create a superb nutrient-rich mulch, which decomposes much more quickly than un-shredded material due to its greatly increased surface-area. This is particularly useful if your local authority refuses to take away garden waste. Some shredders incorporate a chipper capability for dealing with larger branches.


Electric Chipper/Shredders

Affordable, convenient and easy to operate, electric chipper/shredders use either a cutting or crushing mechanism to reduce garden debris.
Blade-shredders, such as those by Bosch, Al-Ko, and Ryobi, excel at cutting up leaves, small twigs and greenery. They also produce fine mulch, which is particularly good for composting. To avoid clogging you should rotate between wood materials and green waste. Machines which use a crushing action, referred to as 'silent' or 'quiet' as they make far less noise, will cope with reasonable sized branches and have the added benefit of producing valuable woodchips, which can be used for composting, bed protection and creating pathways. Bosch is also introducing a range of drum-based shredders which will deal with both green and woody materials.
Models such as the Ryobi RSH-2455 and the Handy THSS are very quiet-running machines, making them ideal for use in built-up areas. These models use a low-noise crushing system rather than high-impact blades to deal with your waste.
Other features to look-out for include a reverse action, so you can free blockages without dismantling the mechanism; and a self-feeding system which pulls branches in automatically, optimising throughput and enhancing operator-safety. Hopper diameter, reduction ratio and number of blades should also be taken into account.


Petrol Chipper/Shredders

Powerful and robust machines, petrol chipper/shredders range from the 4hp Eliet 'Primo' through to the 8.5hp Ardisam CS8 and the very high-performance 9hp Eliet 'Major'. Most manufactures employ a highly effective combination of blades and flails which simultaneously crush and cut debris. Eliet, however, use a series of hardened-steel knives (20 on the 'Major') to shred even the toughest material to a very fine mulch.
Some models, such as the Lawnflite 24-220E and those by Ardisam, have a both drop-in hopper for brush and leaves, and a chipper-chute for larger branches; while leading manufacturers MTD and Mighty Mac produce machines with fold-down tops which allow you to deposit large volumes of leaves quickly and easily - especially handy during the Autumn months.
Common safety features include an accidental-restart lock; a mechanical blade-brake; and automatic overload cut-out.