My husband is getting a lot of 'how to manage a small acreage' advice from his brother, who has had a similar sized place for quite a few years, and number one advice was Buy a Big Chipper. And after a few dozen trailer trips to the dump of green waste we moved it up the priority list, and bought this beauty. Also a connecting thing so it can be towed about by the ride on mower.
Like all fabulous things it is made in NZ, and can allegedly do a branch up to 7 cm in diameter, but it stalls a bit at that size so we're taking it easy until we are used to it. (Luckily number two advice was Buy a Selection of Chainsaws so anything bigger we'll use as firewood).
So after a bit of try-and-fail with set up and starting we have had a couple of excellent chipping sessions. It is so satisfying to see an enormous pile of branches and prunings reduced to a lovely manageable pile of mulch. Because our garden is so overgrown we are absolutely in a trim and chop phase, and we have lots of uses for mulch.
I am slowly moving my way around the house, and next on the list were these rosemary bushes. I felt a bit sad about them, because they were not a bad planting, and looked very cute when we bought the house ... but rosemary won't grow on old wood and these were far too high for the verandah. So I chopped them back to stumps (thank you small electric reciprocating saw, new favourite tool) then mattocked them out.
This is the pile of rosemary bushes.
And this is the much smaller pile of woodchips! It was a delight to chip, it flew through the chipper and smelt AMAZING. Next on the chipping list is the pile of weed trees that garden guy has cleared from the creek .... not so much fun.
Dad, I think you avoided the black chairs because they are murder on anyone's lower back - that curve was evil. God knows why anyone would buy them to be honest ... and no we didn't put down newspaper on the weeds ... mostly because we don't get a newspaper any more! We are having to light the fire with bank statements.
Oh, to be there. I'd be raking up all the leaves as well to put them through as acquired compulsive behaviour. Very sensible to buy a chipper without a grill.
ReplyDeleteso you can do green material without clogging up which I can't. Another trick - put the pile of mulch through again - it takes only a few minutes and makes the result so much tidier to handle.
I cut my huge rosemary back to a stump but I couldn't remove it from the hole in the pot, so left it and it has grown again. Bit late to tell you that now.
Those new toys look like a lot of fun, and being put to good use. "What's in the trunk comes out in the branches" seems particularly appropriate here :-)
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