Re: How much does shredding of hedge trimmings reduce bulk?

[Dave Gibson]

> I need to trim a leyladii hedge substantially. > The main problem with doing it myself is the disposal of the waste. > There wil be a lot of it. > > I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile to hire a shredder to reduce > the bulk. Can anyone give me an idea of how much the bulk will be > reduced by shredding? Will it reduce it by 50%? > > Does shredded leylandii make useful compost? > > Thank you, > > Jake >

Just done my 50ft run of Thuja placata, similar to leylandii. I used my mountfield rotary mower, with cutter set to high, to 'vacuum' up all the hedge trimmings (luverly smell, really clears out the tubes!). I reckon it reduced the volume by about 3/4, ie I ended up with a volume a 1/4 of what I started with.

HTH

Dave

[Andy Hall]

Well...... there does seem to be some evidence that Leylandii have a deleterious effect on plants growing near them that goes beyond their shading effect and of drawing large amounts of water from the soil.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Neil Jones]

True - I think the suggestion is that the roots exude some substance which interferes with other plants. I think Rhodedendron ponticum shows a similar phenomenon.

But I doubt that this effect will continue after the composting process

Neil

[NJF]

Leylandii fumes when shredding put one of our Profs off sick for several days, be careful when the shredders heating the stuff as it cuts its not good for you...

Niel.

[GB]

My advice is to get a chain saw. Don't just trim it. Get rid of it once and for all. It's a weed!

Geoff

[Woodspoiler]

I shredded most of a Lleylandii and spread some of it directly over the flower beds. A friend refused the logs for fire wood as it is very resinous apparently, and does your chimney no good at all. Maybe that's why it rots slowly.

Nothing in the flower beds died anbd I had no health problems. It took years to disappear, but the soil was previously very infertile and now it's quite the opposite. Kept the weeds down too.

Can't tell you how much the volume reduction was. The foliage and branches (up to 30mm diameter) of a sizable tree went from filling half a (small) back garden to a depth of several feet into about 30 dustbin liners. Two days solid work, mostly in the rain, with a decent hired Maita shredder, > the bulk. Can anyone give me an idea of how much the bulk will be

it once and

[The Natural Philosopher]

Just donate any trimmings to the local Guy Fawkes society.

Even totally freshly cut, the trees go up like napalm bombs. Full of cresoet etc :-)

[usenet]

Not true really, it's just as good or as bad as other wood is to burn as long as you season it properly. 'Resin' (whatever that is) doesn't really affect the burning properties of wood, it's the water content that matters. If there's too much water in the wood then you get creosotes generated and *that's* what harms your chimney.

I looked into this quite thoroughly as we burn quite a lot of Leylandii wood in our stove. There are a few sites to be found with good (i.e. actually researched) information on Leylandii wood and it's actually pretty average for lots of uses.

[usenet]

Hmm, see my other post. The leaves of Leylandii do burn in quite an exciting way, holly is even better. Unseasoned Leylandii wood is too wet to burn easily and that *will* send creosote up your chimney in just the same way as burning any wood with lots of water in it.

[Brian S Gray]

I use a 'silent' shredder to compact the trimmings from beech and laurel hedges with some holly and berberis mixed in. Crudely, a large heaped barrow load becomes two cubic feet or so in my collecting bag. Perhaps of some interest is that I find that two or three bagfuls with some (B&Q) compost maker in a compost container heat up in a short time (a few days) and then rapidly shrink even further. I have to add some water to stop things drying out afterwards while they rot down further. In fact I have enough hedges that I keep on adding shredded material to the compost containers for several weeks at intervals. I have heard suggestions that shreddings can heat up noticeably if one tries to dispose of them in the wheelie bins provided by some local authorities for garden refuse.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually th eresins get the wet wood hot enough to dry out and go up very well

It does create a lot of tars tho, which is why I'd burn it in the open.