Grow Your Own Magazine

The hedge at the front of my house had been getting a little bigger each year despite me trimming it and it had grown to about 7 foot high, so I decided to cut it down to 4 foot today.

Now Berberis is a spikey SOB, at the best of times I end up looking like a pin cushion every time I tackle it.

Of course what I hadn't thought about was the amount of material that cutting this down would produce. lopping 3 foot off the top has created a pile as big as the hedge itself.

It's much too spikey to bag and I think it would take weeks to get rid of by filling the green wheelie bin we have for garden waste.

Have sent SOS to friends to borrow a garden shredder, still gives lots more light into the house.

Burn it.

Do it when your neighbours strike up the BBQ, so nobody can complain.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

It would look like a Viking's funeral pyre

Well, I can't supply a viking, but will Gordon Brown do?

I used to have a similar pin cushion effect with the two rambling rector roses I planting around our front door in our last house. A good burn, seems fitting to me.

"It would look like a Viking's funeral pyre"

How cool would that be!! You could sell front row tickets!!

We've chopped loads of confier/Leylandii down in our front garden after it was vandalised, and we have a huge pile of stuff - 3 mature trees were vandalised and we've cut down a further 2....

Mr OWG is planning a lovely big bonfire, so has lugged all the wood/branches down to the bottom of the garden, ready for burning! We use the ash in our compost etc, so it's not too bad

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"Its not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you" - Bruce Wayne

I am planning to chip mine (a bunch of Leylandii I cut down) for the paths between the raised beds

i did the same with my hawthorn and some dead/nearly dead trees the other day, and left them in a big pile on the waste ground behind the garden, figured i'd have a bonfire, but today a big digger came along, and buried it all under a load of soil, wish i'd finished chopping the trees down now. ....... burning it is definitely the way to go

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http://teachy.myminicity.com/env please visit my town and make it better

http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?biter=teach_me please sign up to be a vampire, i get 10 pints of blood if you do, and it's fun as well ....... i have an interactive map if anyone wants it.

Must admit if I had logs from felled trees, then I would like to try these mushroom plugs or could make log piles for hedgehogs. Also been looking at these insect hibernation houses but sadly all I've got is a huge pile of spikey brush.

A friend is going to drop over a shredder on Friday but can't even use the result as a mulch as the thorns do you shred down enough.

Had the same problem when I took the Pyracantha out from the back garden.

Can you not mix it in with your compost once shredded?