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It’s that time of year again. The days are getting longer, the weather is improving, and you’re starting to think about venturing into the wilderness beyond your back door. That’s right: it’s time to break out the lawn mower, fire up the hedge trimmer and prepare your garden for the odd moment of barmy British sunshine.
In order to do the job properly, you’re going to need the best gardening equipment around. With such an enormous range of products available on the market, however, it can be hard to know where to begin – and when you’ve been caught out by a pressure washer on the blink, the last thing you need is to spend hours hunting for a new one.
At Expert Reviews, we want nothing more than to make your life simpler. That’s why we test and review hundreds of garden products each year: to sort the winners from the losers and help you make an informed buying decision when the time comes. After all, the gardening tools and equipment you buy should last you for many years to come, so it’s vital you get it right the first time.
On that note, we’d like to welcome you to the Expert Reviews Garden Awards 2022. The following article is a guide to the standout products in a wide range of gardening-related categories, from hoses to hedge trimmers and lawn mowers to leaf blowers. In each category, we’ve crowned an overall winner and a runner-up, so you know exactly which products are worth your hard-earned cash.
There’s nothing in the pressure washer market that can match the Karcher K4 Power Control. Last year’s winner lands the top spot again this year by offering an unrivalled feature set and impressive power at a thoroughly reasonable price. The K4’s Power Control gun and Vario/Dirt lance attachments are well suited to a huge range of tasks and can be attached to the body of the machine for discreet storage. With a 1,800W motor blasting 420L of water per hour, the K4 Power Control is capable of handling even the toughest domestic cleaning jobs, from patios to small cars.
Nilfisk’s mighty P180 earns itself a silver medal by delivering the most heavy-duty pressure-washing experience we’ve witnessed to date. It has a 2,800W motor capable of pumping out 620L of water per hour and two different nozzle attachments to help you clean anything from a patio to a caravan.
Bosch sweeps our lawn mower category this year, with the Universal Rotak 36-550 taking the win for the second year running. This cordless mower is built to make life easier. The 38cm cutting deck is height adjustable via a button built into the handle, while the blade itself is specially designed to pulverise fallen leaves. It will run for 30 minutes on a single charge and features Bosch’s ProSilence technology to keep the noise to a minimum. A phenomenal all-rounder and a worthy winner.
“Bosch’s top cordless mower technology in a cheaper, smaller form factor.” That’s how we describe the CityMower 18, a quiet and effortlessly powerful mower built for small gardens. This mower might be comparatively small and cheap, but it still packs in the same ergonomic handles, adjustable deck and 30-minute battery life. It’s no surprise that this mower has picked up multiple awards this year.
The Bosch AdvancedGrassCut 36 combines the power of a petrol trimmer with the simplicity of an electric model. The result? An exceptionally effective trimmer with a large 30cm cutting width and a 40-minute battery life suitable for more demanding tasks. It’s on the heavy side, but the trimmer’s adjustable handle and pole will help you maintain a good posture, while the cordless design gives you total freedom of movement – perfect for large gardens.
Billed as an effective, affordable all-rounder, the Worx WG163E earns its place here by providing good performance at a palatable price. Ideally suited to dealing with overgrown paths, lawns or steps, the head on this superb lightweight trimmer is adjustable and has a built-in plant protector, too.
Bearing all the hallmarks of a garden staple, the Gardena Classic is a top-drawer garden hose. This 20m hose can be wall-mounted using the bundled bracket or removed and carried around using the built-in handle and sturdy legs. From spool to hosepipe, the Gardena Classic oozes quality, but in the unlikely event of a split, the hybrid plastic-textile pipe is backed by a 12-year warranty. This is a fine hose and reel set for all but the grandest of gardens.
We described the Hozelock Tuffhoze as “super-powered hosepipe”, and it’s easy to see why. This is a ruggedised pipe that’s available in a range of sizes and is built using a combination of woven textile jacket and PVC “dura-tech” core for zero kinks, zero splits and zero chance of bursting – even at 40 bars of pressure.
Ranking as our favourite all-rounder, Wet & Forget’s dedicated moss, mould, algae and lichen remover is incredibly easy to apply and delivers better results the longer you leave it. Simply mix the concentrate with water in the correct quantities, give the affected patio a good soaking and relax. It takes a couple of days for results to show, but with a bit of patience you’ll be rewarded with clean, well-protected stonework for a whole year.
Industry staple Jeyes scoops up a well-earned second place in this category with another supremely simple and effective patio-cleaning solution. The 4-in-1 Patio Power formula is preventative, meaning you won’t need to use it so often after the first pass.
Our favourite secateurs for sheer comfort, the Wolf-Garten RR5000 have a 25mm cutting width and a host of features aimed at keeping your digits safe and secure. These include a double-sided safety catch and a rubber pad to stop sudden closure from pinching your fingers, as well as a wrist loop so you don’t drop them and plastic grips lining the handles. They’re easy to operate and can be disassembled to replace the blades, too.
If it’s cutting power you need, the Gardena 8798 Comfort Ratchet is the way to go. This pair of secateurs uses a ratchet mechanism to triple its cutting power, making short work of stems up to 25mm in size. A heavy-duty solution that can tackle the toughest shrubbery.
The Bosch AHS 55-20 Li is cordless, but don’t let that deceive you: this beefy hedge trimmer has a 55cm blade that can take even the unruliest of hedgerows in its stride thanks to a maximum cutting width of 20mm. It will run for around an hour and takes roughly the same amount of time to recharge. There’s nothing overly complicated here, just a high-powered hedge trimmer that makes tough jobs look easy.
This behemoth of an electric hedge trimmer is over 1.2m long and weighs around 4.5kg, but you’ll be glad of the heft when you’re faced with several metres of unruly conifer hedge. In spite of its size, the Makita is great to use, with a rotating ergonomic handle and multiple blade speeds.
Claiming the top spot for a second year in a row is Resolva’s fast-acting and potent 24H Ready to Use weed killer. As this is a selective weed killer, it aggressively targets the source of your irritation without damaging surrounding plant life, and as an added bonus it dissolves into the soil once it’s done. This makes it ideal for patios or driveways in close proximity to flower beds – simply load the solution into the bundled pump, adjust the nozzle and spray away, without fear of damaging your prize shrubbery.
Scooping up the highly commended award in this category once more is Roundup Naturals, a selective weed killer that, as its name implies, swaps harsh chemicals for naturally occurring ingredients for peace of mind. The best bit? You’ll notice visible results in just three hours.
This is the ultimate do-it-all garden tidying machine. The UniversalGardenTidy alternates between vacuum and leaf blower depending on the attachment you connect to the body, with a slimline nozzle for leaf blowing and a larger pipe and bag for sucking up and mulching all your garden debris. Unusually, it excels at both: it’s remarkably quiet as a leaf blower thanks to Bosch’s ProSilence technology and mulches leaves and twigs then packs them tightly into its 45l bag. It’s corded, too, so you don’t need to worry about battery life.
Worx’s WG583E takes the leaf blower/garden vacuum formula and simplifies it, ditching the cord and making the transition between duties as seamless as possible. The result is an efficient, manoeuvrable garden vacuum (with mulching capabilities and a 35l bag) that doubles as a powerful leaf blower.
Aside from its self-levelling deck and waterproof design, the Worx Landroid M500 Plus manages to do something most other robot lawn mowers can’t: it cuts right to the edge of your lawn. This talented automaton has a blade that’s positioned closer to the edge of the machine, so it can reach that pesky bit of grass that most robot mowers miss. It’s also an accomplished all-rounder with a great feature set, but it’s the little extras that earn it the winner’s spot.
Coming in a close second place in this category is the Bosch Indego S+ 500, an intelligent robot lawn mower with onboard memory and a methodical approach to cutting your grass. It has a smartphone app and is compatible with Alexa, Google Assistant and IFTTT, so you can set it going using your voice.
Although it’s a leaf blower first and foremost – with a 3,000W motor that produces air speeds of 310km/h – the Flymo PowerVac 3000 is another talented multitasker, and a worthy second-time winner in this category. We found that this wired blower cleared even heavier detritus from lawns and driveways with ease, and like other 2-in-1 machines has a mulching function to pack more into its 45l bag. Chuck in a remarkably low price and it’s a clear winner.
The Worx WG543E is a superb compact leaf blower built to be stored and operated with minimal fuss. Don’t let its 80cm frame fool you: this blower can pump air out at 209km/h, making it a pint-sized force to be reckoned with.
This is Bosch’s biggest, most powerful consumer garden shredder, and it’s an astonishing bit of kit. It will take branches up to 45mm in diameter and reduce them to shreds without a fuss thanks to the 2,500W motor and Bosch TurboCut technology. It has an enormous 53l bin and sits on a pair of wheels to lessen the effort required to manhandle its 30.5kg weight around your garden. Put simply, there’s no task too big for the AXT 25 TC – and that’s why it earns the win here.
In many ways the opposite to the Bosch above, the Einhell GC-KS 2540 is a fantastic, affordable shredder for smaller tasks around the garden. It’s relatively lightweight, compact and therefore easy to haul from one end of your garden to the other.
It might not surprise you to discover that our favourite lawn mower scoops up a win in this category. The Bosch Universal Rotak 36-550 is a supremely effective cordless lawn mower that can tackle even the wildest of gardens without breaking a sweat for the duration of its 30-minute runtime. With built-in leaf mulching, ergonomic handles and Bosch’s ProSilence technology to keep noise to a minimum, this really is the ultimate lawn mower – cordless or otherwise.
The Worx WG749E is a big, beefy cordless mower with a 46cm blade and enough oomph to suit a massive lawn. It has variable throttle control and rear-wheel drive, so it won’t slow down even on tricky slopes, and it runs for a solid 40 minutes on a single charge. If mowing your lawn is a challenge, we reckon the WG749E is the solution.
Bosch’s remarkable CityMower 18 picks up a second award this year, and rightly so. There’s simply nothing that can match this pint-sized mower for features, nor is there a rival out there that runs as quietly or as efficiently. The ergonomic handles house twin motor controls and an easily accessible cutting deck adjustment button, so you won’t be straining against this mower. Throw in good battery life and a great price and it’s clear the CityMower 18 earns its spot here.
By ditching the wheels in favour of a cushion of air, Flymo’s EasiGlide Plus 330V can deliver an unmatched level of versatility, with plenty of cutting power no matter the topography of your lawn. It’s also seriously convenient, with a folding handle and an easily removable grass collection bin helping earn the EasiGlide Plus its place.
You might be surprised by how many features Gardena can pack into its humble AquaZoom M sprinkler. You’ve got the option to tailor this oscillating sprinkler to the task at hand by adjusting spray range, spray width and water flow. It also has wide feet for stability, a sturdy construction backed by a four-year warranty and impressive performance, with a water jet range of up to 18m or 250m². It doesn’t matter what you plan on watering: the AquaZoom M is up to the job.
This is a high-end oscillating sprinkler that gives you greater control over the spray than any other model we’ve tested. Small buttons on the sprinkler head let you manually switch individual nozzles on and off so you can fine-tune the spray width and range.
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