Bosch AXT 2000 XP shredder

I haven't written any product reviews here on Lavendon Garden before but given how much garden stuff I buy I thought that I would start to share some of my purchase highs and lows with readers of my blog. I should make it clear that these reviews will be unbiased and that the products I review have been bought by me with my own money (but if people want to send me stuff that's great too hee hee).

With that out of the way, I've just bought myself a new shredder, the Bosch AXT 2000 XP silent shredder to be precise and it's great. I bought it to help me improve the quality of the material that I'm putting into my compost bays as historically I've found it difficult to dice the cutting up enough. Out of the box it needs a little assembly but the instructions on how to do so are clear and easy. I was up and running in about ten minutes. It has a fairly long power cord (these things are important) and a set of wheels for moving it around the garden however these aren't really a luxury, more a necessity as the machine itself is fairly heavy.

Unlike many shedders the AXT 2000 uses a corkscrew like cutting blade as opposed to a spinning (lawnmower-like) cutter. This makes for much quieter operation and in my opinion better quality shredding. Size wise the shedder can easily handle branches up to 38mm diameter. I'm not sure if it's the corkscrew mechanism or not but it does clog with softer garden material but thanks to it's reverse mode it's normally pretty easy to clear any blockages and if the cutter does become stuck there's an effective cut out circuit.

If I have one complaint, and it's a small one - it's that the shredder doesn't come with a bag to catch the shredded material although you can buy one as an optional extra. The man pictured on the box has one so it came as a bit of a surprise that there was not one inside.

On the maintenance side you need to make sure you clean out any remaining material and run the cutters clean. If used regularly then that's it. If you're storing it then a little oil on the cutters is all that's required.

So all in all it's a solid bit of kit - A good all round shedder and I'd certainly recommend it to a friend.

(Note: Sorry about the photo size. It was the best I could find. Sigh...)