You can be too helpful!

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I have been doing quite a lot of pruning of shrubs in the garden, and had collected up a heap of branches. They were all piled up in front of our garage waiting for my partner to run them all through the shredder. I use all the chippings in the garden, either added to the various compost heaps (I have eight), to make paths, or to mulch around shrubs and perennials to conserve moisture. Well our neighbour obviously thought it looked untidy (his garden is an immaculate rectangle of perfect grass with a few geometric shrubs around the edges). He told my partner he had a skip for garden waste which we would be welcome to add the branches to. My partner thanked him but said we planned to shred them up. A couple of days later and the branches had been converted into a pile of woodchip. My partner happened to be in the garage when he heard scraping sounds outside, and upon investigating found the neighbour scooping up the woodchip (with a dustpan and brush!) into bags which he planned to take away and empty into his skip. Apparently he thought we meant to shred the branches up and then dispose of them. Lucky he was found in time because I would have been annoyed to find all my valuable resources had been taken away – I can never have too much compost! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2026.