Owning your own home

I bought one of these, it is mostly a 2.5kw motor with spinning blades and a chute;

https://www.screwfix.com/p/mac-allister-mis2500-2500w-80kg-hr-cutting-shredder-220-240v/354fg

I justified it by originally planning to get someone in to do the clearing and that would have cost waaay more. So with this, big bulky stuff gets chopped down to more manageable stuff.

It is great for sticks and thick roots. Up to about 1.5" in diameter. Leafy soft stuff is no good. You have to be able to get it through the hole and pushed down into the blades (which are revesible for when, like me, you try and stick a bit of rusted iron in there that you thought was a root - and replacements along with the allen bolts are easily found on ebay). It's like stabbing someone with a wet rope at times (any man approaching 40 knows what I'm talking about).

But when you get the hang of it, it's great. Massively reduces the overall volume of stuff. I've fed mine with holly, ivy, brambles, rose hip and laurel so far.

The shredder is fairly safe. I would not be able to get my hands near the blades either from the top or bottom. It can block up on the output, but that's easily cleared. Some people have even removed some of the safety vanes on the output to help with that, but I haven't yet.