Which garden strimmer

By continuing to browse you consent to our use of cookies. You can understand more and change your cookies preferences here. In this article. The best grass trimmers can make tidying up the garden a breeze, while the worst can leave you with chewed-up lawn edges and a battery that's dead within minutes.

Use our expert advice to help you decide whether you need a petrol, electric or cordless model — and then check our reviews to ensure you don't end up taking home a dud. Head to our best grass trimmers to find out which model you should buy. There are three main types: petrol, cordless and electric.

These are designed for cutting large areas of long grass and stubborn weeds. But because they're so powerful, they can be tricky to use for light tasks such as lawn edging. They're best suited to gardeners working away from the house for longer periods of time, for example in a meadow or on an allotment — all you need is a can of petrol and you can trim for hours.

Most petrol trimmers can also double up as brushcutters for cutting brambles. Cordless models are typically more expensive, as you're paying for the convenience of not having a power cord — perfect if you don't have easy access to a power source.

They're usually lighter than corded and petrol models. However, you will need to factor in the extra time needed to charge the trimmer in between doing large garden jobs — the worst batteries can take more than four hours to charge. You can get cordless models for both light and heavy-duty gardening tasks. Generally the cheapest option, electric trimmers need to be plugged into the mains.

They are designed for general, light tasks around the garden such as trimming around the fence and edging the lawn. Already know what trimmer you want? Jump straight to our grass trimmer reviews. Nothing — a strimmer is just a shortened version of grass trimmer. Trimmer is the generic term, while strimmer and any other distinctions are typically coined by manufacturers for the same thing. The only exception is a brushcutter, which is a highly powered machine designed to cut tougher foliage and small trees.

You can convert most petrol trimmers into brushcutters by swapping the line-trimmer head for a metal blade. However, in our tests we've found that buying a very cheap grass trimmer is often a false economy.

If you're just planning to cut your lawn edges, look at buying long-handled shears instead. These are better for the environment and much quieter in use. They're also easier to cut a straight line with than some grass trimmers. Cordless models are more expensive. The most expensive cordless grass trimmers are designed for cutting down long grass and tough weeds, and have a long shaft and a fixed head.

They're best suited to heavy-duty tasks, and it's worth paying a bit more for a top-scoring petrol model. The most common problem is the line or blades breaking or running out. Another really useful feature is the ability to angle the head up to 90 degrees, we found that getting into the grass under low shrubbery areas is far easier, without you having to do your back in. This basically means you have to tap a button to feed more of the cord through, which is easily done from where you are so this is nice for those that want more manual control without the hassle of messing with the spool itself.

You get a good hour of use out of this strimmer, which should be more than enough for most edging jobs. Especially with that large 30cm cutting swathe eating up grass fast. For the price, this is a really impressive cordless grass trimmer and edging tool. It also means you can buy this without a battery, at a lower price. This is particularly useful if various people in the family use it. Offering a 30cm cutting swathe backed by 8, RPM of speed, this strimmer is tougher than most cordless models.

We popped it into Turbo mode and found it could take on weeds, light shrubs and, of course, even long grass. The key is that E-drive tech which adjusts the power to suit the job.

But should you want to make this last, say, on a grassy lawn, there is an Eco mode. We had this on as default for our usual lawn edge work and it was plenty powerful. If anything that 30cm cord length was a little on the long side.

Despite all the power, the running noise was low and the battery just kept going for well over feet of garden. This uses a really handy bump feed which does as the name suggests, bump the head on the ground and more line is fed out. This actually worked well although we worried about damaging the head or parts, doing this regularly. That said, it feels solidly made with strong materials used, despite being light and easy to manoeuvre precisely — making it ideal for edging along that patio edge of ours we keep mentioning.

The battery keeps going for around half an hour before needing a charge. This was the case for grass strimming and edging with the odd tougher weed and a bit of light brush. This is thanks to the 7, RPM of cutting speed you get behind the 26cm cutting diameter. Even as a taller user we found the 18cm of shaft adjustment range enough to suit comfortably without bending forward, though for anyone a lot taller this might be more of an issue. Type of strimmer: Electric corded Weight: 3.

The Flymo name is synonymous with grass maintenance and the Contour E is at the forefront of all that fame. This is the pinnacle of what years of research and development have come to. But the W motor is reliable and the unit is versatile with strimming, edging and shrubbing modes.

The handle and telescope shaft are also easily adjusted, which we found useful for compact storage. The auto feed makes use of the 15mm line simple, although the 25cm cutting width is on the smaller side. But we did notice this Flymo is quiet, making it ideal for use anytime, early morning or late evening. Want an even cheaper option? Go for the Flymo Contour XT and save money with a lighter model with a bit less power.

Buy the Flymo Contour E at Amazon. There are lots of factors other than price that you might want to think about first though. A decent cordless grass strimmer can be a real game changer. Especially for gardeners wishing to dispatch large areas of long grass without being reigned in and curtailed by a trailing cord or resorting to messy, petrol powered means. Petrol strimmers tend to be more capable of slicing through tougher grass and twisted thickets but they can be both heavy to use and noisy, and the resulting carbon emissions do the environment no favours.

Lithium ion rechargeable batteries also known as Li-ion and their accompanying chargers tend to be rather pricey, so this may sway your choice if you already own cordless tools.

We tested them on a variety of jobs, from intricate garden borders to tough patches of weeds down on our neglected allotment.

Gird your Li-ions, here are seven of the best cordless grass strimmers currently on the market. That said, we also found it equally at home in a less demanding garden setting, where its ergonomics and balance make it a pleasure to use.

Its distinctive, v-shaped frame is ergonomically designed to keep your back straight while you work and can be telescopically extended or reduced to suit the user. Regarding the latter, we found it quite tricky to perform an accurate cut and felt that the attached guide wheel was a tad flimsy, but nevertheless it got the tedious job of lawn edging done in a speedy manner.

Besides, if you are looking for a super-precise finish on a manicured lawn, a pair of edging shears are probably the order of the day no matter which strimmer you choose.

We also applaud the joystick-style trigger handle, which made us feel like we were doing something way cooler than just cutting grass. This lightweight strimmer from Flymo sports an integrated battery that boasts 40 minutes of runtime — a decent pay-off for a cordless strimmer at this price.

It also shuns the more traditional spool and wire cutting mechanism in favour of easy-fit plastic blades, which should please folks who have ever had trouble replacing unruly spools of snaking wire to a depleted strimmer.

The first thing to note is that this robust strimmer from Toro comes packing a chunky 2. In use, it absolutely flies — in fact it took us longer to attach the handle to the shaft than it did to whizz over the grassy paths we tasked it on.

Strimmer line is easy to replace — there are no spools so you just thread the replacement line directly into the cutting head, reducing the chances of a sweary exchange between man and machine. The cutting head rotates 90 degrees for edging duties and comes packing a plant bumper guard to protect your precious perennials. This model is currently out of stock but you can sign up to be notified when it becomes available again.