I have a Bosch AXT 2000HP Silent Garden Shredder very easy to use has reverse to clear blockages and is kind on the ears !!
Its not the cheapest but worth a few £'s extra. Used to have a black & decker one that was hopeless.

Don't be tempted to buy B&Q 's own make called someting like Premier or project will be rubbish .

I choose bosch after reading many reviews online I also have a bosch electric mower too !!!! ( I m a convert to German engineering !!)

Hope this helps
(do a google search for shredder reviews )

Here is a link that might be useful: Shredder reviews search

If I might suggest a lawnmower for shredding autumn leaves (a rotary one, cylinder mowers don't shred so well). Garden shredder is a poor name since they are really chippers, designed to handle woody material. The bladed shredders at the lower end of the market will mash leaves to some extent but just shoving in a pile of leaves is a thankless task and they won't feed through easily. Leaves attached to thin branches shred quite well. Or you could get a leaf shredder gadget, they are a bit like a leaf blower but they suck and then shred the leaves into a collection bag. I have little experience of them.

Soft material like weeds and soft green twigs also don't do so well. The better bladed designs handle the clogs better by being able to run backwards but the end result isn't always great. Once the blades start to dull, you get more puree than shredded :)

The bladed designs work well on thin branches, an inch is really the best you should expect, preferably fairly long straight branches. Flexible branches may feed through intact, perhaps with the bark stripped off, and even tougher branches can sometimes leave you with lengths of stripped bark. Short ones don't feed through as cleanly, really crooked branches or ones with lots of side branches, may not feed through at all. The feed slot is necessarily narrow because these designs just don't have the power to handle too much at once. They are quite usable if you are patient and careful. If you are a ham-fisted bull at a gate, you will end up throwing the thing in the nearest river! Again, if you are the type for it, you can handle your own maintenance by sharpening the vlades or fitting new ones but it can be fiddly and the blade attachments can get pretty impacted with gunk in there so not always easy to remove.

The next step up, and really about as powerful as you can get running off the mains, are the crushing types. They have a cylinder that grinds the material against a thick gearwheel, or the "silent" types have a screw that drags the material down through a tight space and crushes it. Neither type will do much to soft green material, except bruise it a little :) They crush branches quite well, but may leave very thin flexible stems intact. Not so good for leaves, no blades to cut them and crushing a leaf is a waste of your time and electricity. Not very practical to maintain yourself, plan on paying a professional every year or few depending how much you use it.

The Bosch models all seem well rated but bear in mind that none of these things can be used for feeding in thick or very large branches as you might have seen tree-cutters do. None of them will handle a two inch branch and anything over an inch of hard wood requires care. If that's what you need, then rent a petrol version for the weekend.

Yes to the last post. I watched a professional shredder at work yesterday and it sent the branches though as small chips but leaves went in and out unscathed.

I have heard that electrical ones aren't up to much. I would say that sharing the cost of an hired one each year would be the best way to go.

The trouble is that busy hire shops often neglect maitainance of their fast moving stock. I think it's a case of paying for the best there.

Many thanks for all your helpful suggestions!

chazza: Not trying to dampen your enthusiasm for shredding things, but as shrubs_n_bulbs and mrs_tr3lly5 state (seems as though they've both owned shredders), homeowner/gardener models of shredders are just about worthless because of their limitations. To add to what shrubs_n_bulbs writes, they won't shred anything that is the least bit damp--it'll clog the screen almost immediately--so everything must be bone-dry to stand a chance of being shredded. I, myself, have one in the barn, and it has been there for many years. You'll no doubt see many used ones in the classifieds, because I've never seen anyone who was satisfied after they purchased one. They do very little. I have an eight-horsepower (I'm almost positive four REAL horses could do much better) shredder/chipper, that I was completely dissatisfied with, and put it aside. I wouldn't have the heart to re-sell it to anyone. The "chipper" part of it is the biggest joke--but the creative advertising got my mind; a bloke standing beside it with a mountain of chipped branches, nearly as tall as his cottage, and the words "Make professional mulch--chips limbs up to 7 1/2 cm in diameter", beneath. Indeed, I needed a little professional mulch, so I bought one. I found it would require the rest of my life to make a mountain of chipped branches to equal the one in the advertisement. The "chipper" is ONE blade that comes 'round each revolution, while you stand there holding A limb, as the machine gradually chips away at it-akin to a big, clumsy pencil sharpener, but not nearly as thorough. And, since every action has an equal and opposite reaction, your teeth chatter and you shake all over as though you're afflicted with Saint Vitus Dance (since you are the REACTION on the other end of the limb). Your choices are pretty much limited to small, homeowner/gardener models up to 10 hp, that won't do much at all, and giant screamers with automobile engines in them, that'll grind YOU up if you happen to make a misstep, with prices ranging from 500 pounds, or so, for the former, to 15,000 pounds (or more) for the latter. I'd be careful, and opt for the latter (for hire), after you and your friend have half a yard full of clippings and trimmings and leaves. (My apologies to the poster with the Bosch--I know nothing whatever about that particular model, and it may very well be the cream-of-the-crop). Just trying to find some humor in my disappointment with the rest of the lot.

I didn't say they were worthless, I wouldn't be without mine. But they are not black boxes into which you can simply throw every piece of garden waste to get it nicely chopped. All of them take a little care to use and discretion about what should go in. If you don't have much patience, don't get one.

Sorry, shrubs_n_bulbs (and mrs_tr3lly5), I misspoke (too late at night, I imagine); worthless is MY assessment of small, underpowered chipper/shredders. In my area, a pile of organic material always contains moisture, and moisture is the undoing of all (underpowered) shredders I've used--it continually clogs them. I also refuse to stand holding sticks, one at a time, while an underpowered chipper hacks slowly away at them, (as I vibrate). I find them a waste of time. Our county has a large efficient machine that makes beautiful mulch, from organic debris taken to them by homeowners (like me) and sells it back to us at a very reasonable cost--no more than 8 pounds a cubic yard (to pay the salary of the machine operator and the upkeep of their machine). No doubt, it would take me a week to make 8 pounds ($12 U.S.) worth of mulch with my 10 horsepower chipper/shredder, and I would have an inferior product. There are other towns and municipalities near me that also own such machines, and GIVE mulch to their residents (they sell it for a reasonable price to those OUTSIDE the communtiy, to pay the salary/upkeep). Perhaps, such an idea could be considered in YOUR community: green (grass clippings) and brown (leaves) organic material, make a wonderful compost, and it would be a win/win situation for the town/city/municipality/county AND its residents (and the environment).

Yes, its unfortunate that municipal compost here is sold back at about five times that price for the coarsest grade. In fact it is only in the last 18 months that we have been able to buy it back at all in my town, and I think we are one of the lucky ones. Government here still runs on the principal that the people it should serve are an inconvenience, or at best a source of income :( I send them all my diseased plant material and tough weeds.

I meant to put "cubic yard" in metric, which would approximately equal a cubic meter. Many people drive (what we call) "pickup trucks" here--don't know if they're as prevalent there, but it's gotten to the point here that WOMEN routinely drive them. Twenty years ago, it was unheard of for a woman to drive a pickup truck (that very point was presented to me by a woman just recently, who stated nearly what I just wrote, when she said "Twenty years ago no self-respecting woman would drive a pickup truck!" Nevertheless, they're a handy vehicle for light hauling, and having an open "bed" as we call it (that area where the load is placed), allows them to haul (carry) oversized (particularly, "tall") loads that would not fit a normal vehicle. (How would you get a refrigerator in a Rover??) They originally were used on the farm and in the country to carry bales of hay, straw, or anything else one could fit in the bed. My uncle, on the farm, put high sides on his pickup truck, and hauled livestock to market--hogs, sheep, cattle. They are generally designated "1/2 ton", or "3/4 ton"--the ones most commonly used by the average person. There are approximately 1,000 kilos in a ton (a little less, actually, but a nice round number for comparison), so a "half-ton" pickup truck theoretically will safely carry 500 kilos, and a 3/4 ton pickup truck will safely carry 750 kilos. I have hauled 2,000 kilos of sand in a 3/4 ton pickup truck, so we really don't pay attention to the word "safely" (though I doubt it's good for the springs and shocks (shock-absorbers) and tires on the pickup truck. The "bed" of the average American pickup truck is 1 1/3 meter wide and 2 1/2 meters long, and a little less than a meter deep. One can haul (carry) about 2 cubic meters of mulch, compost, soil, manure, etc., in that space, so a cubic meter of compost is a good-sized pile (heap). Two fill a pickup truck: about 16 pounds, monetarily, from our composter ($24 U.S.). (I have no pound "sign" on my keyboard, only a $ sign.) I, too, am appalled at any government agency (city, county, state, etc.) that charges ridiculous prices for "environmentally friendly" services, such as mulching or composting. It conflicts with the POINT of doing it--having people bring organic material to be composted and returned to the Earth in a way that will grow food (fruits, vegetables) or beautify (flowers, trees) the area from whence it came.

How would you get a refrigerator in a Rover??

No problem. Everything is much smaller here, so we can fit it in our cars :)

I've heard that Bronneberg provide a service for industrial shredding services - could this work for you?

Let me know your thoughts.