Best Lawn Edger: Reviews of Electric, Manual and Petrol Edging Tools

The Flymo Contour would be my favourite lawn edger as a homeowner. It is ideal if you have a very rough shape to your lawn but you need contour it to the smooth and clean shape you desire.

The edging feature is simple to use with an easy release button to swivel the head around so you can use the wheel for edging.

There’s plenty of power too, and it edges lawns with ease. It doubles up a strimmer so you can easily switch between the two tools.

The 500E is the slightly smaller version with a 25cm cutting head. However, for larger lawns, there is a bigger more powerful version available with a 30cm head which is the 650E.

There are a couple of downsides to this model but are not deal breakers… The first one being it is slightly heavier than your average strimmer, but I put this down to the edging feature which helps give a more smooth cut. Secondly is that the cable length is not long enough for most lawns. So you will most likely need an extension cable to reach all areas.

Overall the Flymo Contour is a great lawn edger and ticks a lot of boxes for most homeowners at a very affordable price point.

If you like to edge your lawn manually with a traditional crescent edging iron, the Premier Edging Knife from Bulldog is fantastic.

OK, it’s more expensive than other edging irons but that’s because it’s quite a lot better.

The head is solid forged from one piece of steel which is riveted to a hand-turned Ash t-bar handle. The blade is thicker and far stronger than similar tools and as a result, it’s reassuringly heavy in the hand.

It feels like it’ll last 100 years!

I’ve used more edging irons in my time than care to count and I’ve broken many of them. Hit a root or rock in the ground and many will bend or break.

This tool cuts through turf as cleanly as you could wish and isn’t fazed by roots or rocks.

The Bulldog is a beast of an edging iron and it’s definitely the best I have used.

And it comes with a lifetime guarantee.

For that razor-sharp, hand-cut finish when trimming overhanging grass at the edges of your lawn, these shears Wilkinson Sword are hard to beat.

Firstly, there are two types to choose from;

1. Traditional edging shears, and
2. Lawn shears

The traditional edging shears are for vertical trimming of your lawn edges while the lawn shears cut horizontally and are perfect for cutting part of a lawn your lawnmower can’t reach. Around trees and corners of square lawns for example.

Their carbon steel, non-stick blades are sharp and hold their edge over time so the quality of cut is impeccable. The cutting action is also very smooth unlike some which can be quite ‘jerky’.

The smooth cutting action combined with the soft grip handles makes them a joy to use and I expect them to last years.

This is backed up by the fact that Wilkinson Sword offers a 10-year guarantee.

One downside to these shears might be the length of the handle at 850mm. They’re perfect for most people but if your particularly tall, you might find yourself having to stoop while using them.

The Black & Decker GLC3630L20 is a very good lawn edging tool that doubles as a strimmer.

In fact, it’s a strimmer first but it does a fantastic job of trimming grass edges.

It features a wire edging guide to keep you on track and the head spins at 8,500rpm so it’ll easily cut through thicker grasses.

And because it’s cordless, you won’t have to worry about wrestling with an electric cord.

It’s powered by a Lithium-Ion battery that’ll give you fade-free strimming for 30-40 minutes which should be plenty of time to edge even large lawns.

The cutting line is fed through an auto-feed system so if you do break it on a path, stone or root, it’ll release more without you having to fiddle with it.

And it weighs in at 3.5kg so it’s light enough to handle fairly easily.

I have to say, it does take some practice to keep edges neat with a strimmer but if you’re looking a tool that’ll strim as well as edge, the Black and Decker is excellent.

If you like to get up close and personal when trimming the edges of your lawn, or if you need to trim an area you can’t get to with long-handled shears, these hand shears from Wilkinson Sword are perfect.

Using them is like giving your lawn a hair cut!

As you’d expect from Wilkinson Sword, the blades are sharp and deliver a beautifully clean cut.

The blade head rotates through 180 degrees at 30-degree increments so you can cut vertically or horizontally and anywhere in between.

The scissors themselves are light in the hand and the cutting action is very smooth. Just a little squeeze fully activates the blades which are 13cm long so you can cut a metre length in around 8 strokes.

When you’re not using them, the blades lock shut by the press of a button.

And like the long-handled shears above, they come with a 10-year guarantee.