"Michael Savage" wrote
snip
If you go for one, here's a tip...as branches are drawn in, you tend to
find all the green stuff at the various tips coming through in one
go...that is a good time to feed in the next branch cut-end-first, as it
gives some 'roughage' for the machine to work on rather than clogging up
with wet stuff.

That's exactly what I found. You can shred up all the sappy pieces with a
few woodier branches fed in to pull it all through.

Recently invested in a new Al-ko 'Silent power' model and I'm very pleased
with it. The binful of stuff I did back in May with a borrowed machine has
already mostly composted down into some wonderful dark stuff, not quite yet
good enough for planting into perhaps, but will be super for mulching.
There's already another great half a bin started.

When I think of all the times we've taken trailer loads of branches off to
the dump after a general pruning session, I can't get over just how much of
the garden's valuable energy we were throwing away! Never again!

Sue