Bosch Garden Shredder AXT 25 D (2500 W, Cutting Capacity: Max. Ø 40 mm, in Carton Packaging)

I had a Bosch shredder before this model for about 10 years and it had given great service but had worn out. As a result I found this model which offered an effective replacement and would perhaps be even better. I was not disappointed. My garden has a lot of wild rhododendrons and they grow almost like weeds, and so require quite extensive pruning back. This results in branches of between just 5cm up to 40cm or more, the more I keep back to cut up for woodburning stoves. The cutter on this shredder was like my old one, but driven by a more powerful 2.5kw motor, and on the first full day of use did not jam at all. The speed of cutting was the same and the collection box is rigid v a collection bag, and the box must be in place for the shredder to work. I have just one criticism on this the view into the shredder box is very limited and the cut material piles in a pyramid so it is necessary to stop shredding to "spread" the material in the box. It only needs to be done once but you need to guess when to do it, although after about 6 or seven box fills you know almost by instinct when it is necessary to do this. As others have commented wheeling the shredder is an art as it will start to "rock" from side to side if pulled along, I found it easier to push it and put a little weight on the top to keep it from doing this. With rhododendrons on a long thicker branch of 40cm you get a lot of foliage at the end, only once did the hopper get a bit clogged up with that and that was mostly as a result of the box "pyramid" clogging the out side. For 2 days - 7 hours each day the shredder consumed all the cuttings - with all the cut up foliage put back as mulch. I also have to commend the sound level it is very good and although I was used to putting on ear defenders found I did not really need them. I like the top hopper being detachable to store in the collection box, and it also means that if the hopper does get jammed up with soft foliage I can easily get it out, unlike on my old one which you could not. I contemplated getting the next model up with the new turbo cutter but in the first place it was £75 to £100 more, and although it would add a further 5cm to a thickness of 45cm cutting I was not certain it would offer me any real advantage for the extra cost - perhaps next time when I have worn this one out in another 10 years!

Bought this to deal with large budleija's 'trees' ~ 6-10' tall. Does well on the dry thin bits or any large branches (what it is designed for). Too much leaf / small green branches tend to block or chain - but I did better on the second attempt - my tip feed next bit of main branch as last leafy bit of the previous one going through. Sets up easily. Collector bin is easy to get in and out for emptying. Good 'wedge' piece - which sits neatly to hand in part of the top section whilst shredder is in use. Not very stable to wheel around once set up - too high a centre of gravity vs narrow footprint. Uncomforable to wheel around when 'packed' as you need to bend over to get a hold. No sensible place to wrap the electrical lead when packed away - so this keeps ending up on the floor :-(

I've used shredders for 20 years or so and have had at least 4 different models. This is by far the best. I did a lot of research before buying this as it is expensive and I feel I should pass on what I've learned over the years - especially as there were a significant number of 1 star reviews for this model. This shredder is as good as you'll get. There is no magical shredder that will shred everything and anything at high speed, to a fine texture and never get blocked - that is unless you pay a fortune for some huge industrial scale machine like tree fellers use, and they're really dangerous. Firstly, no shredder will deal perfectly with both green/sappy material and woody material. The rapid shredders [have a number of blades that whizz round at very fast speed] are in my experience more or less useless. They will only shred quite thin twigs and green material and clog very easily. If you have a lot of say, hedge clippings, they're OK, but that's about all they'll shred. The crushing type shredders - like the 25D - firstly will not shred to a very fine texture and secondly don't cope very well with a lot of green sappy material; they need something a bit harder to keep the stuff passing through without clogging. So you need to mix up green stuff and woody stuff - prunings are fine. But you you need to ask yourself, what are you shredding for? The texture to which the 25D reduces material is absolutely fine for reducing bulk - for a trip to the dump - or crushing/shredding sufficiently for effective composting. No one needs to shred leaves or other soft green material; just stuff it in bags or stick it on the compost heap. Secondly, the thinner stems and twigs that come out of a crusher type shredder will still be in one piece; but they are crushed enough to collapse into a bag and compost easily, so the bulk is reduced. Thirdly, and most importantly, it is a immutable fact of shredding life that all shredders will clog up at some point unless you have the patience of a saint. Inevitably you will push too much of the wrong stuff in - because you're trying to get the job done - and you'll need to clear the shredder. so you'll have to dal with blockages; the issue is, how easy is it to do so? Fourthly, with all shredders you have to keep an eye on the output. If you do not empty the collecting box/bin/bag the shreddings will back up and clog the shredder: that's another fact of shredding life. So from my experience you need a shredder that has, in order of priority, (a) a powerful motor and sharp crushing cog that will not chew through the toughest stuff and not blunt or corrode (b) a feeder hopper that is easy and quick to remove to clear any blockage and (c) a decent sized collection box that is easy to empty I say 'in order of priority', but if it falls down on any of these counts you'll be in for a life of frustration and fury. The Bosch 25D scores well on all counts. My old and cheaper shredder had problems with the crushing cog which corroded but the biggest problem was you needed to undo 4 screws with a screwdriver to take off the feeder hopper to clear blockages. The Bosch just has one knob to turn and off comes the feeder in seconds. The feeder hopper seems very well designed and I've had very few difficulties - compared to my old shredder - in getting material into the shredder. A lot of people don't seem to like the collection box as it is too small or causes blockages when only half filled with the shreddings backing up. The same thing happened with my old shredder which had no box but needed a bag put underneath it. You do have to empty the box regularly but it is simplicity itself. The problem is that for health and safety reasons you do need a cover over the bottom of the shredder to stop people reaching up and under to clear blockages - and losing their fingers; trust me, it does happen. The other good thing about this shredder is it cuts off the motor if you pull it out and so clearing blockages underneath is easy and safe. This shredder is heavy and tips over easily if you wheel it around over uneven ground, but that could only be avoided if it's profile were a lot wider, which would make storage more problematical. I have one quibble; why oh why is there no decent cable storage solution? Apart from that, this has lived up to expectations and is well-worth the - fairly high - price. I can assure you cheaper ones will be a lot more frustrating and difficult to use.

Sadly, as I am a bit of a Bosch fan for their rightly-renowned good quality equipment of all sorts, especially domestic kitchen machines, I have to give this an extremely disappointing one star. I have particularly large gardens and had previously owned the more junior version of this machine. I decided to use the smaller machine at a smaller second home, and thought as I was buying a replacement I would go for the more industrial next size up version. It looks very similar, but just bigger and therefore I thought more powerful and more suited to the task. I couldn't have been more wrong. The smaller one perfectly chopped up all stems and small branches etc into perfect sized pieces in the bin which could then be easily composted or taken to the skips. The big one cant cope. It tears and semi-shreds the same sort of garden waste and routinely jams up, wasting time while you clear it. In the end I have given up and its going as its sat in the shed unused for some time. Did I have a rogue one? I don't know but I wont be buying another Bosch shredder. Not anti-Bosch as I have just ordered a new Bosch dishwasher this week, but a word to the wise.....

Pleased with this shredder, as it performs as specified and does the job I bought it for - chomping up garden waste so I don't have to take it to the tip. Agree with many other reviews I read before buying it: Copes well with woody material up to about 30-40mm diameter, poor for green material (useless for shredding soft green material alone) - but can work OK if the green material is fed in along with woody material, relatively quiet, works well with long branches which it sucks in and chomps up (as long as there isn't too much leafy material). Green, leafy material clogs up the cutting drum. It's a bit heavy to lift and you have to be careful it doesn't topple when moving it as it is top heavy. It could do with a better cable tidy - cable tends to fall off the tidy when you move it. The collecting basket tends to vibrate out slightly after a while, which causes the shredder to cut out because of the safety switch. A couple of times I thought it had jammed, but in fact the collecting basket just needed pushing back in to place - not a problem once you are aware of it. Some reviewers have complained that the collecting basket gets full too quickly - the shreddings tend to collect in a pile and you have to spread them out a few times if you want to fill the basket before emptying it - again I don't mind this. I've only had it a couple of months, so too early to tell how hard wearing it is, but so far I'm glad I bought it.

I am a full time gardener and used a couple of shredders to reduce waste. I found commercial chippers very expensive you have to tow them and designed for big tree work This is the best shredder I think you can get , it’s between domestic and commercial , sturdy and I’ve not jammed it once yet . Easy to clean out , I have no complaints about this machine , if you need a good shredder this is the one to get

My first one went wrong on first use - the cut adjustment got forced open and could not be adjusted closed. The replacement has worked fine. It cuts hard wood well and makes nice small chips. Softer items are a little more challenging but that's to be expected with the quiet drum type of shredder. Blockages can be cleared easily using reverse and the supplied plunger. Compared to my previous shredder, which wore out, the Bosch cuts better and is easier to clear of soft blockages. Adjusting the cutter should use the integral handle but I've found it much simpler to take the handle off and use an alum key. This is easy to do and works fine. Unfortuantely there is nowhere to keep the alum key. The shredder collection box can be a nuisance but you need something to collect the cuttings and it has more much capacity than the large bucket one would typically use. A good shake every now and then keeps you going. It is good to have wheels but it can be a little unstable moving it. The rating reflects that it does the job it is meant to - very well, but a few niggles.

I read the other reviews on here before making up my mind to buy this. It is heavy, I'm a healthy, strong big man and even I used a wheelbarrow to move the delivered package from the front of the house to the rear to un-box it and put it together. It assembled within 20 minutes and it is awkward to manoeuvre but a firm grip solves any problems. It is very robust as a machine and well designed to pack away into a shed in its own profile. My top tip is make sure you are wearing safety glasses and always wear strong gloves as the thin branches can whip across your face when you are using the machine. I cut down a huge volume of saplings from my fig tree, enough when passed through the machine to fill two tall wheelie bins of chippings and it took me several hours, but it was worth it as the chippings are taken away by the council as part of my garden waste contract and not stuffed into the boot of my car to take to the green waste bin at the council tip. It deals with twigs and saplings up to 25 mm diameter perfectly, and like others have said, it isn't necessarily good at leaves on their own unless they are attached to the twigs. It is relatively quiet, not as noisy as an electric lawn mower and much, much quieter than my previous blade based shredder. It works on a series of blades in a conical drum, much like a cylinder mower works. I like it and enjoy using it as it is fast, quiet and efficient.