Brush pile for garden bed creation

There's been a lot written about using a brush pile as critter habitat (see The Brash pile BB thread for example). I make smaller piles each year as part of my coppice cutting. The branches that aren't worth the while cutting up are piled up until I get round to breaking them up for kindling. Although they aren't 5 foot high as per the BB requirements, I can vouch for them being a good wildlife habitat even so. Small birds and mammals love the shelter they provide, as do ground beetles and other insects.
Anyway I have been dismantling one that had been proving it's worth as a habitat by giving shelter to mice that have been eating my vegetables. You can see it in the background of this photo of my bird perch from early this year:

brush pile in background

and after a year decomposing:

pile of sticks

I generated a few months worth of kindling in a couple of hours - even quite large sticks snap easily after a year outside in the rain, much quicker than cutting them to length.

cleared ground

You can see I've been left with a fine cover of small twigs and a very clear patch of ground! As it happens, I know there is still a bit of creeping thistle that may come back from it's roots, but other than that I now have a bit of garden that just needs a rake over the surface to start sowing!
I could imagine using this method as part of a long term rotation, deliberately covering a different section of garden each year with twiggy prunings, albeit I would still need a way of dealing with the vole/mice issue!

What types of trees are you pollarding?

I have had good luck with maple and oak leaving it to dry out in a similar pile but didn't have as much luck with redwood trimmings. They kept a lot of 'spring' to them even with weathering.

The branches were mainly alder, with some hazel. Yes I have also found that coniferous branches take much longer to break down. It probably depends a lot on your climate. Spruce can take several years here to get to a snapping stage. I do have fewer conifers, and tend to use the side branches in my mini hugels mixed with broadleaved wood for extended core longevity.

In a similar fashion, I had a 20 x 4 foot pile of wood chips stored over winter along the path to my compost bays. I just finished spreading the chips around the perimeter of my garden fence and have a nice area that has been cleared of the grass and other perennial wildflowers that compose the lawn on my property. I laid down brown construction paper and a nice layer of compost, and am going to plant alliums (onions and garlic) and stick black currant, jostaberry, and haskap cuttings down the middle. Maybe put in winter squash after the garlic comes out next year. Will need to cover with netting to keep the deer from getting any ideas.