Important features to consider

Type

Pruning shears or garden shears come in different types like bypass, anvil, ratchet, or thinning scissors. Each of these varieties has specific qualities that help in pruning your garden. For this review, we solely reviewed bypass and thinning shears.

• Bypass pruners are the most common and have sharp blades that cross when cutting and are best for green branches and stems up to half an inch (or more).
• Anvil pruners have a double-edged top knife that slices into a stationary base blade and is best for cutting dead branches or stems.
• Ratchet pruners have comfortable handles and are easier to maneuver for people who need assistance in leveraging grip strength.
• Thinning scissors are great for removing small stems like tomato plants or tiny seedlings.

Max cutting thickness

Many pruners indicate the maximum branch thickness they can successfully cut through. The size indication is often listed on the product packaging or online unless they were thinning pruners meant for smaller branches or stems. However, after testing, we noticed that these limits weren’t entirely accurate because they also depended on strength of the user’s hands.

Left/right-handed model availability

Are you left or right-handed? Do you have people in your household that are both? Most pruners are made for right-handed people, but brands carry left-hand-specific pruners. All the pruners we tested are right-handed but could work as left-handed pruners, except that the blade faces the opposite side so you lose some visibility of the branch you’re cutting.

Build quality and repairability

Build quality is important to consider when you buy any tools, especially if they’re used and stored outside. Pruning shears come with blades of hardened steel, titanium (coated), carbon steel, and nonstick. Depending on your gardening plans, each material has its pros and cons.

Coated blades are great to prevent sap from sticking if you’re cutting green stems–all you have to do is wipe them down after each use. If you want a longer-lasting tool, hardened or carbon steel blades are super durable, and you can sharpen them later on–however, they require more upkeep that involves using oil to prevent rust.

If you want a single product that lasts a lifetime, pick a pruner you can repair easily. Some pruner brands we tested sold new springs and blades (like Felco), but few sold or offered instructions on how to replace the garden shears. Budget brands were cheaper, but if you are concerned about repairing your tools and are more eco-conscious, then repairability is a big feature to consider.

Budget

Pruning shears come at various prices dependent on brand, type, and quality. You can find shears at prices ranging from under $10 to over $60. If you are tight on a budget, there are low-priced pruners that can do the job. However, we’ve found that pruners that were higher priced have better warranties, are made with sturdy materials, and are easy to repair. You typically need to pay a higher price for a longer-lasting tool.

How we selected

We tested over ten varieties of pruning shears ranging in price from $7 to $60. While there are different types of shears, we focused on the two most popular: bypass pruners and thinning scissors.

Bypass pruners are typically used for cutting green (or stems still attached to living plants or trees) and are the most widely available. Thinning scissors can also cut live plants, but their slimmer-shaped blades allow for delicate cuts to plants like tomatoes or vining plants like cucumbers.

Between these two types of pruners, we picked some of the most well-known brands like Felco and Corona Tools and budget brands like Gonicc and Vivosun.

How we tested

For several months during the Spring and Summer gardening seasons, we tested eleven pruners in different scenarios. We tested indoor and outdoor plants and trimmed thorny rose bushes and thicker citrus tree branches, crops like corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, kale, and other vegetables. Many pruners stated that they would easily cut through a maximum of ¾ of an inch thick stems; however, we quickly found out this couldn’t happen without a lot of grip strength.

We tested each pruner on average and smaller-sized hands to review comfort levels and ergonomics, especially for a few pruners specifically made for smaller hands. For reference, we tested each pruner with two gardeners with small (6 ½ x 3 inches) and average-sized (7 1/4 x 3 1/2 inches) hands.

Lastly, we compared the durability and maintenance of each pruner. Depending on the blade material and the pruner’s overall repairability, some pruners require higher maintenance after each use, while others just need a quick wipe.

The post The 10 Best Garden & Pruning Shears appeared first on Your Best Digs.

We’ve done an extensive amount of watering our seedlings, plants, and trees with garden hoses, expandable garden hoses, hose nozzles, and larger outdoor watering cans. Since indoor plants are smaller than our outdoor ones, but still range in size, we wanted to try watering cans of different water capacities, varied designs and materials, and both single stream and shower heads that were all under $50.

Over two months, we tested over half a dozen indoor watering cans multiple times a week on various sizes of plants and containers from four to 15 inches in diameter. We watered various plants, from prolific herbs to micro tomatoes to finicky variegated plants.

Important features to consider

Water capacity – Compared to outdoor watering cans, indoor watering cans are typically smaller in size and hold less water because there are often fewer plants indoors to water or you want to be able to store it easily. We tested over half a dozen indoor watering cans that ranged from one pint to over one gallon. The size of your watering can depends on how many plants you need to water and how often you are willing to refill the watering can.

Spout type & length – Watering cans come in single-stream spout or shower head attachments. Often when the watering cans have shower head attachments, they are also removable so that you can have both options available.

If you have small-sized pots or plants that need watering from the bottom or at the base of the stem, you may want to consider single-stream watering cans because they reduce spillage. If you have a wide planter for herbs, we prefer using a shower attachment to gently and evenly distribute water.

Spout length is also important to consider if you have small crevices you need to reach between multiple stems or plants.

Material – Many watering cans are made of plastic or metal. A preference for materials can be more than just for aesthetic reasons, but also for environmental or functionality. If you want to reduce the amount of plastic used, you can opt for metal watering cans made of copper or steel. If you want a watering can that is lighter to hold; then plastic watering cans are typically lighter than metal varieties.

Budget – The price of watering cans we tested ranged from $5 to just under $50. There are so many price points when it comes to watering cans, and budget can be a big factor in how much each gardener wants to spend.

The post The 7 Best Indoor Watering Cans appeared first on Your Best Digs.

Typically, a classic outdoor watering can hold up to two gallons of water and features handles at the side and top for easier maneuverability. It also has a shower nozzle that gently showers water evenly over plants. By comparison, the indoor watering cans we tested topped out at 1.2 gallons in size for easier handling and smaller plants.

Each garden can range in size or has specific needs depending on the plants, so we realized that no matter what type of watering can (or garden tools, like pruning shears) you choose, it needs to be easy to use and be within your price range. This review includes watering cans under $50, have varied handle designs, range in capacity from ½ to two gallons of water, and are made from different materials.

We tested these watering cans multiple times a week over the span of two months in a backyard garden with plants in the ground, container beds, terracotta pots, plastic seed containers, and fabric grow bags in various sizes.

Important features to consider

Water capacity – When we couldn’t water the plants with our garden hose due to reach, we opted for a watering can. For bigger planters or multiple plants that need watering, a larger watering can that’s at least two gallons in water capacity will reduce the number of times you need to refill the can. However, if you have smaller planters or don’t want to lug around large amounts of water, a smaller one-gallon watering can be sufficient in your garden.

Material – Watering cans are typically made from plastic or metal (galvanized, stainless steel, or copper). Plastic watering cans are more affordable than metal cans and are lighter in weight. However, if you want to reduce the amount of plastic in your life due to potential microplastics leaching into your garden, then metal watering cans are your best bet.

Spout length – If you have plants that require ground watering or need to water a lot of small crevices between plants or containers, you may need to consider a watering can with a long and narrow spout. The longer spouts reduce crouching or bending over while using the watering can.

Spout type (shower vs stream) – Many outdoor watering cans have a shower head attachment. This allows for a wider area of watering compared to a single stream spout because there are multiple holes the water goes through. The shower attachment also streams out in an even slower pour than a single stream spout.

If you have plants that can’t get their leaves wet or have hard-to-reach plants in small crevices, you may want a single spout that reaches them directly near the root. Note that the single-stream nozzle pours water fairly quickly, so you may need to handle these more carefully than shower attachments; otherwise, you may damage the plants or interrupt the soil near the roots of the plants.

Ergonomics – Hauling two gallons of water can be heavy after a while, so it’s important to have comfortable handles on watering cans to help ease your wrists while working. Larger watering cans typically have two handles: one on the side to hold the can and one on the top to help pour the water out. Sometimes, one long handle is connected from the back to the top, which allows you to position your handle in many positions depending on what you’re watering or adjustable for easier weight distribution. We prefer a sturdy and thick handle on the top and bottom (or attached handle) because it’s easier to pour water without too much strain on our wrists.

The post The 8 Best Outdoor Watering Cans appeared first on Your Best Digs.

Outdoor watering cans are compact and great when you have just a few pots to water, but what if you want more water volume without having a huge garden hose? Over the years, we’ve tested many garden hose nozzles and other hose types before on our garden hose review, which included flexible steel hoses, heavy duty rubber hoses, and other materials. While there were some very compact options with flexible steel hoses, we were interested in just how compact and flexible expandable hoses could get, so we put the most popular expandable garden hoses we could find to the test watering our garden.

The 11 expandable garden hoses we tested

Important features to consider

It can get downright mind-boggling to find an expandable garden hose that’s right for your gardening needs. A simple search pulls up hundreds of expandable hoses, and many — if not most — are identical.

The first expandable garden hose was purportedly invented by Michael Berardi, who took out patents in 2011 and 2012 for his “XHose” before selling them on TV in a series of home-shot infomercials. Lawsuits followed from several other “inventors,” which set off a storm of copycat hoses made in China. The XHose was upgraded to the XHose Pro, and it too was ripped off by no-name brands.

When we were deciding which expandable hoses to test, we went with the most popular ones that get the highest ratings. The major problem with this, however, is that almost all of the well-reviewed hoses on Amazon are copycats, and after about a year (or less), the Chinese manufacturers cease producing them, which in turn means they’re quickly out of stock.

The absurdity of the situation came to light when testing hoses for this 2023 update. We ordered five hoses, tested them, and in a single day’s time when we began writing this update, three of the hoses had been discontinued, including the hose we chose to re-test. For some reason, expandable hoses are the most volatile products to buy on Amazon, so in short, buyer beware.

Fortunately, our two top picks are manufactured by reputable and long-standing companies, and during testing, these quality hoses had certain features you should look for when shopping.

Solid brass fittings

Almost all of the hoses we tested claimed to have solid brass fittings. They certainly looked like brass, but most were clearly of poor quality and cheaply made.  Zero-G, XHose Pro, and Flexi Hose, however, had solid and weighty brass fittings.  If you’re shopping for a hose in person, you can definitely tell the difference between the real thing and a rip-off by holding the fittings in your hand.

Material

An expandable hose’s outer material is usually made of an extremely flexible and tough polyester fabric, called Dacron 3750D. It’s firmer and denser than other materials and protects the hose’s inner latex core. When fully expanded the Dacron 3750D is smooth and solid.

Inner core

An expandable hose generally has at least two inner cores made from latex. Although the exterior fabric protects the core from puncture, the core can still get abraded over rough terrain. A second or third inner latex core prevents leakage should the first layer fail. However, too many inner cores require more water pressure to fully expand the hose, so look for an expandable hose that has no more than four inner latex cores.

Length

We tested hoses that were 50 feet in length, but expandable hoses are also available in 25, 75, and 100 feet. Remember that the listed length is how long the hose will be when it’s fully expanded by water pressure. Lower water pressure can affect the hose’s length, so it’s a good idea to buy an expandable hose at the next length up.

Compact and lightweight

Probably the most attractive feature about an expandable hose is that when it’s not full, it’s very lightweight and compact. A 50-foot hose shrinks down to 17 feet when emptied and can be coiled up and hung on a rack or reeled onto a hose reel in a minute or two. Remember, though, that when you plan to water your lawn or garden, before turning on the water, uncoil the hose to its full length away from young or delicate plants, or they could get damaged when the hose rapidly expands.

Nozzle

Almost all expandable hoses come with a nozzle that has multiple spray patterns. The nozzle is a nice add-on, but it is prone to calcification and rust over time.

Hoses tested for this update and discontinued

Along with the other hoses previously reviewed that we learned were discontinued some time in 2023 (see below), we tested two other hoses that went out-of-stock during our testing period.

The post The 11 Best Expandable Garden Hoses appeared first on Your Best Digs.

Table of contents

• How we selected products to test
• Compare the best weed killers
• Who should buy weed killer?
• Important features to consider
• How we tested
• Best weed killer overall Compare-N-Save
• Best natural weed killerNatural Armor
• Other finalists we tested
• The bottom line

How we selected products to test

A quick Google search for weed killers yields hundreds of results — top brands produce item after item that (even for a seasoned gardener) can seem too similar to distinguish. Some promise to kill weeds in the first two days after application, while others promise to prevent them from growing for an entire season. For our test, we wanted weed killers that produced rapid results.

Products that promised to eradicate stubborn, wild growth in a wooded area weren’t relevant for backyard testing, Instead, we looked for weed killers that promised successful lawn management. If the product description or name didn’t reference lawns, we decided not to test it. Because we wanted weed killers that yielded quick results, we also avoided any that needed to be mixed into the soil directly, which lawn owners are meant to prepare a year in advance.

We turned to Amazon, Home Depot, Lowes and Ace Hardware to see which products were showing up most often in their top-sellers lists. We narrowed our search by choosing weed killers that had at least a 70% approval rating. We supplemented our comparison by watching YouTube reviews of the weed killers we were most interested in testing.

Compare the best weed killers

Conventional weed killers

Natural weed killers

Who should buy weed killer?

It’s safe to say that you shouldn’t wait for a full weed infestation of your yard to justify picking up weed killer. But what about homemade varieties?

Many home gardeners have their own weed-killing recipes consisting mostly of vinegar and other kitchen ingredients. These homemade methods can be effective, especially when compared to other natural or organic store-bought varieties. Clearing dead weeds by hand is usually needed because vinegar-based solutions are less effective at penetrating the roots of weeds with complex root systems, most of which are the weeds in your backyard.

A natural, homemade weed killer is cost effective, but for tackling tough weeds or covering a large area, it’s better to look at bottled options that pack more punch.

Store-bought weed killers might be right for you if:

• You want to remove weeds but are either unable or prefer not to do the manual work that weeding requires
• Your yard has an area where stubborn bunches of weeds that grow back soon after you’ve removed them
• You have a large area to cover and could use a high-coverage sprayer
• You’re looking to start totally fresh growth and want to clear away grass and weeds all at once

Important features to consider

Herbicide percentage and composition

Herbicides are technically the name for the chemicals that comprise a weed killer, but they have become synonymous with the weed-killer mixture that treats them. There are a number of different herbicides, and the general rule is that the higher the herbicide percentage, the stronger the weed killer.

The most common herbicide is glyphosate, which accounts for the power of nearly all commercially produced weed-killing products. Glyphosate has been getting some heat lately for its potentially harmful effects on the environment and the people who use them. As a result, natural weed killers have risen in popularity and effectiveness.

Glyphosate works by limiting the proteins that plants need to generate growth; the National Pesticide Information Center maintains that pure glyphosate is not dangerous, but most commercial weed killers add ingredients like surfactants to help the glyphosate penetrate plants, and those may make it riskier; if a surfactant allows herbicides to penetrate plant skin better, it will also penetrate the skin of humans and pets easier as well.

Many of the weed killers we tested contained glyphosate, so we took precaution by wearing protective gloves, masks and shoes.

Active ingredients: conventional

Active ingredients: natural

Post-emergent vs. pre-emergent treatment

Weed killers or herbicides can be categorized as post-emergent, pre-emergent or a combination of both. Post-emergent treatment kills weeds that are already growing in your yard; pre-emergent treatment prevents new weeds from growing.

Post-emergent treatment should be spread during peak growing season, because it kills ground cover and, with the right product, penetrates the roots to prevent future germination of weeds. Pre-emergent treatment should be spread in advance of peak growing season, usually in the fall when plants begin going dormant. Most reviewers of weed killers cite both treatments as part of their habitual lawn-care routine.

For the purposes of our test, it was important that we visually saw results, so we only tested post-emergent treatments. If we were to test pre-emergent treatments, we’d only be able to estimate how many weeds might be prevented from growing, or we would have to test for several years.

Selective vs. non-selective

A “selective” weed killer is supposed to get rid of only “select” plants, and a “non-selective” weed killer dries out everything it touches. Selective weed killers target certain plans, so you should know what types of weeds are growing in your yard. The most common types of weeds vary by region, but they can be divided into two general categories:

• Broadleaf lawn weeds (annual and perennial)
• Grassy lawn weeds

The differences between the two are germination periods, survival time and plant structure. Dandelions and clover, for example, are broadleaf weeds, and crabgrass and sedge are grassy lawn weeds. A weed killer that may kill broadleaf ground-cover might be ineffective on crabgrass. For the average lawn gardener, it’s helpful to determine which category of weeds are growing in your lawn so you’ll know the complexity of their root structures and how best to kill them.

Selectivity has the potential of weakening a weed killer (though it will save your grass), and as we were trying to determine which weed killer was the best overall, we tested both selective and non-selective weed killers.

Concentrate vs. ready-to-use

We tested concentrates that need to be diluted alongside ready-to-use products. Concentrates should be mixed in a separate application bottle, and, if instructions call for it, a surfactant like dish soap can be added. Many people with large yards use concentrates for making bulk quantities of solution, which is more cost effective than buying many bottles of pre-mixed weed killer. Ready-to-use products are equipped with their own nozzles and sprayer mechanisms, which we found helpful for small yards.

Whether you use concentrate or ready-to-use is entirely your preference (we didn’t notice any effectiveness trends), but carefully note the safety equipment and storage needs for handling concentrated products. The cost savings may not be worth the hassle and risk.

Application nozzle (if applicable)

For ready-to-use weed killers with an applicator, consider the type of spray you’ll be getting from the nozzle. Some have a concentrated spray for targeting specific plants and their roots. Other nozzles cover a wider area, oftentimes like a mist.

Coverage (land area)

Whether the weed killer is in concentrate or ready-to-use form, the amount of its land coverage per container could vastly differ. As a general rule, concentrates are higher-priced but are best for large plots of land. Ready-to-use varieties, which have already been diluted, are better for small yards.

How we tested

Over the course of a week, we tested nine different post-emergent weed killers, five conventional and four natural or organic, in a backyard on broadleaf and grassy weeds. We applied the weed killers on a sunny day when there was no rain in the forecast for at least 48 hours. During preparation, application and observation of the weed killers, these are the main factors we considered:

Preparation

To prepare, we read each booklet of weed killer instructions thoroughly, and noted how clear they were. If we were left with any questions or had to do supplemental research, we counted this against the products.

We also factored in prep time from opening the package to lawn application, as well as whether we needed special equipment to prep the weed killer. Our ready-to-use weed killers needed no preparation before use, while preparing concentrates required funnels, careful measurement and thorough mixing. Handling concentrates also required extra protective equipment like gloves in some cases..

Application

During application of each weed killer, we took notes on how difficult it was to apply the recommended amount of weed killer to plants, and how difficult it was to control or change the field of coverage.

Safety

Use of herbicides on an industrial scale requires training, so it’s equally important to take proper precautions when using them in your backyard.

During testing, we noted which chemicals would be harmful to ingest or touch, especially in households with pets and small children who play in the yard, and checked how long we needed to wait before our yards became safe again. Each weed killer we tested had labels for application, storage and mixing, which we heeded and considered as part of our decision-making process.

Performance

We tested 18 equal sections (four square feet each) of lawn area, two for each weed killer. The majority of weeds in each section were dandelions, broadleaf dock, crabgrass and bluegrass. We sprayed each type of weed killer over one section and left all nine sections alone for four hours. If using a concentrate, we mixed it according to directions and applied it with a direct-spray nozzle to spread the mixture.

After four hours, we returned and recorded our initial visual results. Our primary indicators of effectiveness were: browning, wilting, and yellowing. After 24 hours, we again recorded visual results, and using lawn gloves, brushed away any plants that had been visibly affected by the spray. Here we looked for whether weeds were breaking upon contact, and whether the roots had loosened at all.

We visited twice a day thereafter for a week, which was the maximum time period for the weed killers we selected; if they hadn’t worked by then, we marked it a failure.

Consumer reviews reported that sometimes a product worked well for one user and not for another, or the product had inconsistent results. We decided to test two squares at a time for each product, and with one exception, our results were the same across both testing patches.

As we tested, it became clear that if there were no visible results after two days, the weed killer was unlikely to work at all. There were three main tiers of performance: the weed killer worked completely by killing 100% of the weeds, worked a very small amount or didn’t work at all. When it came to eliminating weeds with herbicides, the process was frequently all or nothing.

Price

A key factor in our selection of best weed killer was price. We bought different quantities of each product for testing, and because some were concentrated and some ready-to-use, we wanted to know how much land, theoretically, each bottle of weed killer could cover for its cost.

We calculated cost per ready-to-use gallon, which equates to just under 1000-square-feet of yard coverage. Our most economical option was the Roundup concentrate, at roughly 80 cents per gallon of mixed weed killer, closely followed by Compare-N-Save at $1.01 per gallon.

Best weed killer overall: Compare-N-Save

Of the weed killers we tested, Compare-N-Save – Conventrate Weed & Grass Killer was the fastest-acting and most effective at loosening roots and wilting plants, and it was also the most cost effective.

Compare-N-Save’s clear drawback is that it contains a high level of glyphosate — 41% — that could be hazardous to small children and pets. It’s one of the most reviewed weed-killing products on Amazon, and during our testing, we understood why: it worked, and the small 16-ounce container yields an impressive 10 gallons of spray. At just over $1 per gallon, Compare-N-Save is also a cost-effective option.

We saw results after four hours: All the plants in the squares had begun to brown and wilt. By the end of the first 24 hours, every plant appeared completely dead, and many were removed without needing to loosen the soil first. By the end of the second day, we easily pulled out any remaining weeds and even managed to remove a few by simply brushing them away. As we expected from a non-selective weed killer, the grass underneath the weeds was also dead.

Compare-N-Save - Weed & Grass Killer

A killer formula if we’ve ever seen one, Compare-N-Save killed our weeds in just one day, and not one grew back. You’ll want to use this product if your goal is a clean slate of a lawn to replant and re-landscape entirely.

See Price at Amazon.com

Other weed killers we tested that claimed to eradicate all weeds killed crabgrass but not dandelions, or vice versa. Compare-N-Save lived up to its claim of killing all weeds entirely, and no other product was as pervasive as the Compare-N-Save.

Other weed killers we tested left behind stubborn leaves or roots, but Compare-N-Save was truly nonselective and killed both weed and grass. If you have a large lawn with lots of different weeds to cover all at once, this is a great choice.

Key takeaways:

• Compare-N-Save – Weed & Grass Killer is effective at drying up both top leaves and roots.
• High glyphosate concentrate necessitates careful use.
• This product will kill lawn grass as well as weeds.
• Out of all the products we tested, this was the fastest and most consistent.

Best natural weed killer: Natural Armor

We had doubts about natural weed killers, since our research indicated they weren’t as effective as popular glyphosate-based products. However, Natural Armor – All-Natural Weed & Grass Killer surprised us by performing comparably with our top pick.

Vinegar is Natural Armor’s active ingredient, and it did the job. Four hours after application, weeds were browned and wilted, and by the next day, their leaves were coming up easily in our hands. By week’s end, we could fully remove the plants and roots, albeit with a bit of effort.

Natural Armor was also easy to use. It’s packaged in a ready-to-use bottle and direct spray nozzle, so we were able to apply it with minimal preparation. The nozzle’s position allowed us to spray directly on top of the weeds and the base of their roots every time.

Natural Armor - All Natural Weed & Grass Killer

Natural Armor is the best natural weed killer currently available. It’s a safer alternative to leading herbicidal brands and just as effective. Natural Armor can kill your weeds within a week and protect the environment at the same time.

See Price at Amazon.com

Perhaps the only downside of Natural Armor is its price point. We purchased a 16-ounce bottle for $12.95. For one gallon of ready-to-use spray we’d pay $29.95, a significant amount more per gallon than our leading conventional weed killers.

If you’re environmentally conscious and don’t mind spending a little extra money, Natural Armor is the best natural weed killer that performs just as well as the leading conventional weed killer.

Key takeaways:

• While Natural Armor took a week to fully kill every weed, we were able to retain our green grass underneath the weeds.
• If you have a larger lawn, you’ll find this product a bit pricier than a conventional weed killer.

Other finalists we tested

Roundup – Extended Control Weed and Grass Killer

Despite RoundUp’s recent bad press, its name is synonymous with weed killer, so we decided to test RoundUp – Extended Control Weed and Grass Killer, a concentrate option that does away with a sprayer that many users find ineffective.

In terms of prep, it wasn’t easy working with this concentrate. The bottle isn’t well-designed for pouring, and it got messy — as did the other concentrates. We were glad to be wearing safety gear.

On the plus side, RoundUp’s initial performance was great. It killed all the weeds in the area where it was sprayed and left most of the grass dead as well. If you want to preserve your lawn, RoundUp isn’t for you, but overall it’s excellent for clearing large areas quickly. The dead weeds required minimal effort to manually pull them in just two days after the application.

The results didn’t last the whole week, however; we noticed new weed sprouts toward the sixth day. That failing, and RoundUp’s increasing notoriety, set this weed killer back in our rankings.

Southern Ag – 2,4-D Amine Weed Killer

Consumer reviews for the Southern Ag – 2,4-D Amine Weed Killer are adamant about its superiority. The 2,4-D acid amine is a strong selective herbicide that is more heavily regulated than glyphosate; it may also have more dangerous byproducts than glyphosate weed killers.

Southern Ag isn’t available in every region of the country, so if you attempt to purchase it on Amazon, you’ll be notified whether or not it can be shipped to your area, as distribution regulations for Southern Ag vary state to state. We were able to purchase Southern Ag, and although it’s more expensive than our top pick, Compare-N-Save, its performance was comparable.

We followed instructions and mixed this concentrate with water and three tablespoons of dish soap as a surfactant. None of the instructions for the other concentrates explicitly recommended adding dish soap, so we decided to use the solution on only one of the two areas dedicated to testing Southern Ag.

Twenty-four hours later, it was clear just by sight that the dish-soap additive worked. By the end of the week, the square with surfactant was 100% clear of weeds and grass, while the square without surfactant was 75% clear.

Considering its strength, potential danger and potential unavailability, Southern Ag isn’t for everyone. But if you have a large variety of stubborn, mixed weeds, you might consider Southern Ag as a viable option.

Spectracide – Weed Stop for Lawns Plus Crabgrass

Spectracide – Weed Stop for Lawns Plus Crabgrass was the only herbicidal weed killer we tested that came pre-mixed and ready-to-use with its own spray attachment.

Performance-wise, Spectracide worked well on both dandelions and crabgrass, but it was less effective with other grassy and broadleaf weeds. Forty-eight hours after application we saw dramatic wilting and browning of the dandelions and crabgrass.

After a full week, other grassy and broadleaf weeds had begun to brown and wilt. Although we applied the recommended amount, we surmised that to kill them completely, we would need to spray another application. On the plus side, Spectracide did not affect our grass.

If you have a large yard you want to spray, at about $40 per gallon, Spectracide could get expensive. But if you have a small yard with primarily dandelions and crabgrass, we think Spectracide is worth it.

Ortho – Weed B Gon

As some Amazon reviewers noted, Ortho – Weed B Gon gave us varying results, despite having followed the same procedure on two sections of lawn.

Twenty-four hours after application, weeds were flourishing and the grass was still green. After 48 hours, weeds in one section wilted, and after 72 hours, weeds in the second section had wilted. By the end of the week, some broadleaf weeds in both sections had shriveled and died, grass in one section was discolored, dandelions were beginning to bounce back to life.

Some people claim they’ve had success with Ortho Weed B Gon when they’ve used it in conjunction with other treatments, fertilization and in-soil weed control. Overall, though, we weren’t impressed by Ortho – Weed B Gon’s performance to recommend it.

Avenger – Organic Weed Killer Concentrate

Since there are so few natural weed killers on the market, we gave Avenger – Organic Weed Killer Concentrate a shot. Although Avenger has some devoted users, its performance was poor. After application we saw little change in the weeds for the entire week of testing; one or two had wilted and browned, but the rest were still green and thriving.

If we were weeding a flower bed or other delicate plants that would be harmed by stronger weed killers, we’d consider using Avenger again. However, we’d recommend mixing the concentrate slightly stronger than recommended and dousing each weed one-by-one. As part of regular lawn care, other products in this category win out.

Green Gobbler – 20% Vinegar Weed Killer

Although Green Gobbler – 20% Vinegar Weed Killer is as pungent as the chemical weed killers, it’s safe to children and pets 24 hours after application.

Green Gobbler is ready to use and comes with a hose and spray applicator. Application was smooth and mess-free, and after only four hours, all the weeds in had turned brown and, in some cases, white. After five days, we could pry the dead weeds from the soil with minimal effort.

Dandelions were a challenge for Green Gobbler, and although it’s a good product, it wasn’t as effective as Natural Armor.

Doctor Kirchner – Natural Weed Killer

Doctor Kirchner – Natural Weed Killer is securely packaged with recyclable materials, and a note is included that thanks the user for committing to environmental friendliness. It’s a nice, personal touch, but unfortunately, Doctor Kirchner was only moderately effective. Half the surface area we sprayed showed no visible signs of application. Though it killed both broadleaf and grassy weeds, results were spotty and inconsistent.

Doctor Kirchner could be used sparingly in flower beds and around other delicate plants, where you have the patience and need for multiple, careful applications.

The bottom line

During our testing, we looked for a weed killer that effectively killed a variety of broadleaf and grassy weeds and was easy to use.

Our top pick, Compare N Save – Concentrate Weed & Grass Killer, was undoubtedly the most powerful weed killer we tested, relatively easy to use, readily available and affordable.

Natural Armor – All-Natural Weed & Grass Killer is our choice for the best natural weed killer. Natural Armor performed almost as well as Compare N Save for a price that completely justifies the extra security of environmental friendliness and safety.

Compare-N-Save - Concentrate Weed & Grass Killer

The most powerful weed killer we tested, Compare-N-Save wiped out weeds in mere days. If you want to clear your lawn of weeds fast, its formula will give great results.

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The post The Best Weed Killers appeared first on Your Best Digs.

Table of contents

• The 10 patio umbrellas and stands we tested
• Best market style: Treasure Garden
• Best cantilever style: Hampton Bay
• Best patio umbrella stand: Shademobile
• Other products we tested
• How we selected
• How we tested
• Types of patio umbrellas
• Important features to consider
• The bottom line

The 10 patio umbrellas and stands we tested

Stand	Price	Materials	Special Features
1. Shademobile	$$$	High-density polyethylene	Four wheels, two locking, fill with bricks, sand and/or gravel up to 125 lbs.
2. Abba	$$	Recycled plastic, steel pole	Fill with sand, gravel and/or water up to 50 lbs.
3. US Weight	$	U.V. stabilized polymer	Fill with sand, gravel and/or water or prefilled with concrete up to 50 lbs.

Best market style: Treasure Garden

The Treasure Garden is a nine-foot, market-style umbrella that consists of a canopy attached to a pole in the center. It can be set up either free-standing in an umbrella stand or placed through the center hole of an outdoor dining table and into a base. This beautiful and well-constructed product has several stand-out features — including an easy crank deluxe auto-tilt and durable Sunbrella fabric —  that distinguish it as the best patio umbrella.

First of all, the deluxe auto-tilt feature is a game-changer. Rather than struggling with a hard-to-reach, finicky push-button tilt — as was the case on the other market umbrellas tested — Treasure Garden’s auto-tilt function is built into the same mechanism as the opening crank handle.

Once the umbrella is fully opened, you simply continue turning the opening crank and the canopy will start to tilt. It can tilt anywhere from one to 30 degrees from its original upright position. This auto-tilt feature is especially useful for shorter individuals or anyone who doesn’t want to struggle with difficult to maneuver, push-button tilt mechanisms.

Best Market Style: Treasure Garden

The umbrella’s soft, beautiful, durable Sunbrella fabric, along with its easy-to-use deluxe auto-tilt feature, make Treasure Garden a lovely addition to your patio that will last for years.

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Treasure Garden’s entire easy crank system is not only easy to use, it is also extremely durable. The involved cable is made from heat-resistant, braided Kevlar —  the same material used to make military-grade body armor. In other words, you won’t need to worry about the cable snapping on this product.

The other thing we loved about this umbrella is the Sunbrella fabric. As mentioned earlier, Sunbrella is generally considered the gold standard of outdoor fabrics. We can certainly understand why. The octagon-shaped canopy is gorgeous to look at, soft to touch, easy to clean, fade-resistant, and significantly longer-lasting than many other outdoor fabrics. Treasure Garden backs the Sunbrella fabric with a full five-year warranty.

While we really liked the Heather Beige color, the fabric is also available in 14 other color options.

Treasure Garden is simple to set up. It comes in a box with two pieces: a rust-free aluminum pole, which quickly locks into place on the canopy. The frame is well-made, extremely stable, and has a three-year warranty.

At 17.7 pounds, this umbrella can be easily moved around or put away as desired. It has an attached fabric tie-closure to secure your canopy when not in use. An umbrella stand is required to properly secure this product, but it is not included. We highly recommend the Shademobile stand for this purpose.

The only drawback of Treasure Garden is the cost, which is five times the cost of the other market umbrellas we tested. However, because of its high-quality materials, this patio umbrella is designed to last for years. So instead of buying an inexpensive new umbrella every time your old one fades or breaks, consider investing in Treasure Garden ,and enjoy its deluxe features for years to come.

Key takeaways:

• The easy crank deluxe auto-tilt system makes opening and tilting your umbrella simple and frustration-free.
• The Sunbrella canopy fabric is durable, fade-resistant, and easy to clean.
• This product offers a five-year fabric and three-year frame warranty.

Best cantilever style: Hampton Bay

The Hampton Bay 11-foot round offset patio umbrella is the clear winner for best cantilever umbrella. This well-designed, oversized umbrella provides ample shade and offers a contemporary look to any modern-day patio. The cantilever style is appropriate for shading outdoor lounge-furniture areas, outdoor dining sets, hammocks, or even hot tubs and swimming pools.

As with all of our umbrella finalists, Hampton Bay uses a crank mechanism to open and close the canopy. Given the large size of this umbrella, this one works surprisingly smoothly and easily lifts the canopy.

Unlike some of the other umbrellas, this particular crank can be challenging to reach for shorter individuals when the umbrella is fully extended. To work around this potential problem, you can first pull the tilt handle back towards you to lower the height of the crank mechanism and then use the crank to close the umbrella.

This versatile product can be tilted into several positions. A curved upper pole involves the offset canopy hanging from one end with a handle to grip on the other. By pulling on this handle, the canopy can be slid into different tilt positions anywhere along the curved pole. After tilt is adjusted, the canopy can be locked into place by turning an adjacent knob. Although tilting the umbrella is relatively simple, it took us several initial tries to get comfortable with the sliding motion.

Best Cantilever Umbrella: Hampton Bay

Well-constructed and very sturdy, the Hampton Bay also has a delightful feature of solar-powered LED lights illuminating the umbrella's canopy.

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The umbrella comes in a large, heavy box (69.1 pounds) that is awkward to maneuver. We needed two people to carry it from the doorstep to an appropriate assembly area. All pieces, including tools and hardware, were clearly labeled and nicely packaged in the box along with detailed assembly instructions.

Although this product required more assembly than the other cantilever umbrellas, most of it was for the included umbrella base. The other cantilever finalists required bases to be purchased and assembled separately.

During assembly, a second pair of hands was helpful, though not required, to hold and snap together various pieces of the base. We also appreciated assistance loading sand (sold separately) into the four velcro-closure vinyl bags located within the base.

Once assembled, Hampton Bay — particularly the base — was bulkier than all of the other umbrellas we tested. Because of this, this umbrella is best placed either in a patio corner or other strategic location so it won’t be in the middle of your outdoor living space. On the plus side, this large base allows for this umbrella to be appropriately weighted with up to 220 pounds of sand or gravel. This heavy base weight provides excellent stability for this large umbrella.

Don’t be tempted to skimp on using the recommended amount of sand. Note that the base is not designed to be weighted with water. If you don’t properly weight this umbrella, it will tip over.

It probably won’t come as a surprise that adding 220 pounds of sand to a 69.1-pound umbrella makes the whole thing extremely difficult to move. To save yourself a lot of trouble, we recommend carefully selecting your assembly location to be the same as the permanent location of your umbrella. The good news is that the canopy can swivel 360 degrees for flexibility.

Overall, we found Hampton Bay to be one of the most well-constructed and sturdy umbrellas we tested. Although the rust-resistant base and 2-inch steel pole are extremely stable, the canopy is designed to suspend down from the arched pole and freely sway in the wind. While this works fine in somewhat breezy conditions, we recommend lowering and storing the canopy in higher winds.

Another feature we loved about Hampton Bay is that it includes lighting. Forty solar-powered LED lights illuminate the inside of the canopy frame and create a festive evening ambiance. The solar cell rests mostly out of view on the top of the canopy and a small on/off switch hangs along the edge. Replacement LED lights are included.

We also really liked the gorgeous fabric of the octagon-shaped canopy, made from weather-resistant, 100-percent Olefin. This fade-resistant material has a nice, soft, breathable feel, particularly when compared to the standard polyester of many other umbrellas. The cheerful, chili-red color option is a fun shade for all seasons. An additional four colors are also available.

Two attached velcro straps are helpful for storage purposes.

Key takeaways:

• The Hampton Bay is our choice for best cantilever umbrella.
• Its contemporary design makes an attractive addition to any outdoor lounge area, dining table set, swimming pool or other patio surroundings.
• The high-quality canopy is made from 100-percent weather-proof and fade-resistant Olefin.

Best patio umbrella stand: Shademobile

Although it was somewhat of a hassle to assemble, Shademobile – Rolling Umbrella Base is our pick for best patio umbrella stand. It is for use with market umbrellas only.

Shademobile has several features that we really appreciate. The first stand-out feature is a set of wheels that allow you to move it around to maximize shade options. Because Shademobile can accommodate up to 125 pounds of sand and bricks to properly stabilize your umbrella, this rolling feature is especially helpful, because it would be very heavy to lift. Two of the four non-marking wheels lock into place for stability or, when unlocked, allow the base to roll or pivot as needed.

Another great feature of Shademobile is that it is supportive enough to hold a free-standing market umbrella. Many umbrella stands are designed for use only with a patio table, but because Shademobile offers a heavier base and supports umbrellas further up the pole, table support is not necessary. You do, however, still have the option to use Shademobile under an outdoor table.

Best Patio Umbrella Stand: Shademobile

Supreme stability for a market-style patio umbrella, yet easy to move around, Shademobile gives you the flexibility to use a market umbrella almost anywhere you can roll it.

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It is very easy to insert an umbrella into or remove it from Shademobile. The adjustable style fits umbrella poles between 1-⅜ inch and 2-1/16 inches in diameter. Once inserted, two small knobs secure the pole into place.

Shademobile is made from high-density polyethylene — a durable, low-maintenance material that will not rust or chip. It comes in three colors: black, bronze or sandstone.

One noticeable drawback is that Shademobile is bulkier than other stands. So, if your sole goal is to use it underneath a patio table, this stand might not be the best option. However, if you would like the flexibility to use it to support a free-standing market umbrella elsewhere on your patio, it’s a great choice.

For the most effective stability, it is recommended to fill Shademobile with both bricks and sand. A combination of the two offers the heaviest weight. It is not designed to be filled with water. Detailed assembly instructions are included.

Key takeaways:

• Shademobile provides a supportive base for free-standing or table-supported market-style umbrellas.
• It can be filled with up to 125 pounds of bricks and/or sand for maximum stability.
• Attached wheels offer a convenient method to move your umbrella stand around your patio.

Other products we tested

Abba – Market Table Umbrella

The Abba — a nine-foot, market table umbrella — is relatively lightweight at 16 pounds, simple to set up, easy to use and a nice addition to shade your patio that won’t break your budget. It is a good option for anyone looking for a less expensive umbrella than Treasure Garden.

As with all of our finalists, Abba has a crank opening that is easy to reach and operate. We noticed that it’s noisier when cranking than others. Abba also offers a push-button tilt mechanism that moves the opened canopy into three different positions: upright or tilted to about a 30-degree angle on two opposite sides. We found that the button sometimes gets stuck, causing the use of the tilt function to be frustrating.

Abba’s round, nine-foot canopy is made from recycled polyester, so it’s a good option if you want to be eco-friendly.

The frame is constructed from a 1.5-inch rust-free powder-coated aluminum pole with six steel ribs. The six-ribbed frame is different than the other umbrellas tested, all of which had eight. The fewer number of ribs gives the canopy a nice appearance since more fabric and less metal is visible. We did not feel that the fewer number of ribs noticeably compromised the canopy’s stability.

Although the overall frame is perhaps not as sturdy and well-made as Treasure Garden, it still appears to be stable enough for most situations.

Abba is easy to set up, with good instructions and virtually no assembly. The main step is to screw the umbrella pole into the canopy frame.

Although we did not experience any severe wind during our testing period, Abba is equipped with a single wind vent to allow for breezy conditions. An attached Velcro closure strap is useful when storing the umbrella. As with all the market umbrellas tested, an umbrella base is required and sold separately.

Hampton Bay – Steel Crank-and-Tilt Patio Umbrella

The Hampton Bay is very similar to Abba’s market umbrella and another good budget option for patio shade. Again, there is very little assembly required and, as you might expect from Home Depot’s house brand, the involved instructions are detailed and easy to follow. The main step is to attach the umbrella pole to the canopy section by pushing a small button and sliding them together until they lock in place.

Like Abba, the crank opening is easy to use and reach. The push-button tilt places the umbrella into similar positions. Overall, we found it easier to operate than the Abba tilt.

The round canopy is made from polyester fabric. The sewing quality, however, wasn’t as clean as Treasure Garden or Abba, and there were a lot of loose threads hanging from the canopy. The all-steel frame (pole and ribs) appears sturdy and well-made. However, the dark-brown coating on the steel frame chips easily, so if you are moving your umbrella around frequently, this may be an issue.

The umbrella is lightweight at 13.6 pounds. As with the other market umbrellas, Hampton Bay requires an umbrella stand which is not included. This product offers a one-year limited warranty.

Sunnyglade – Patio Umbrella

As the least-expensive umbrella we tested, Sunnyglade is the most budget-friendly option. It is quick and easy to put together, involving a similar push-button assembly to Hampton Bay’s market umbrella. There are no assembly instructions included.

The crank opening is easy to reach and operate. Sunnyglade also has a similar push-button tilt to the same three positions as Abba and Hampton Bay. Like Abba, the button gets stuck and is challenging to use.

Both the frame and fabric are thinner and lighter weight than the other market umbrellas we tested. Overall, Sunnyglade seems comparatively less well-made based on poorer sewing quality and overall construction than the other market umbrellas. Also, it does not come with an umbrella tie for storage purposes. Like the other umbrellas, Sunnyglade features a single wind vent for breezy conditions. The fabric is available in seven different colors.

Abba – Patio Cantilever Umbrella

We liked many things about Abba – Patio Cantilever Umbrella. The umbrella is large, attractive, and fairly low-profile, especially for an offset-style umbrella. It also has a well-designed, five-position tilt mechanism.

As with all cantilever umbrellas, this product was significantly more difficult to set up than our four market umbrellas. This had a lot to do with its being both awkward and heavy (61.7 pounds). Assembly instructions were included and helpful, though there were a couple of steps that we found confusing.

Assembly required two people to carry the box and also to lift the awkward canopy onto the crossbar base, so plan accordingly when setting up this umbrella. We had some trouble aligning a couple of the parts to screw together, but we ultimately succeeded.

The crank opening mechanism is easy to use, though hard to reach when the umbrella is in its highest, horizontal position. To work around this potential issue, you can first lower the tilt, then more easily reach the crank handle. The feature we really liked on this product is the five-position, push-handle vertical tilt. This convenient mechanism slides very smoothly along the pole and makes it a breeze to change tilt positions. It quickly and securely clicks into position.

We used Abba-brand base weights (purchased separately, not reviewed in this post) to weigh down the crossbars on our umbrella, but a variety of other weight options can be used. Alternatively, the crossbars can be bolted down to a wooden deck. When properly weighted, the umbrella base felt very stable.

Abba’s round, hanging canopy is made from polyester and appeared sturdy and well-made. As with all cantilever umbrellas, it is designed to sway in the breeze, but not recommended for use during high winds. Abba’s frame is constructed from a bronze powder-coated aluminum pole and steel ribs. The non-circular pole is significantly thicker than market umbrella poles, with dimensions of 3.2 inches by 2.1 inches, which makes it more stable.

We noticed that the pole was soldered onto the base slightly crooked, but we were hard-pressed to say whether this made the umbrella appear off-center when fully assembled.

We loved the cocoa color, but Abba also comes in five other attractive options. It includes an attached storage strap with Velcro closure.

ABCCANOPY – Cantilever Umbrella

Although we liked that ABCCANOPY – Cantilever Umbrella was less expensive than the other two cantilever-umbrella finalists, we found it to be a poorly designed product made from inferior materials.

The initial assembly was straightforward, although product parts did not include a wrench, which was required to tighten four bolts.

The ‘easy’ crank opening mechanism was disappointing. Despite the fact that this umbrella canopy was smaller than the other two cantilever products tested, it nonetheless required more strength to turn the crank open or closed.

We also didn’t care for ABCCANOPY’s tilt mechanism. This involves a sliding bar with a handle that secures the tilt position. However, the mechanism is made from flimsy plastic, poorly designed, and extremely difficult to slide along the pole. At one point, while attempting to adjust, an involved plastic piece snapped.

The canopy can rotate 360 degrees, so there was no need to move the base to reposition as the sun moved. Given that this product recommends 120 pounds of weight to secure the crossbar base, this was beneficial.

There was no Velcro or tie strap to secure the canopy when lowered.

The ABCCANOPY is flimsier and less stable than either Hampton Bay or Abba cantilever umbrellas, but its main advantage is its budget price. If you purchase this umbrella, you may need to put the company’s lifetime warranty to the test.

Abba – Round Patio Umbrella Base

The Abba – Round Patio Umbrella Base is a sturdy umbrella stand to use with either free-standing or table-supported market umbrellas. Although this product is made primarily from recycled plastic, a 14.6-inch attached steel pole offers additional support. It can be filled with water, sand, or soil through a convenient opening at the top of the base.

The stand’s diameter is 23.4 inches and has a nice conical shape for under-table use. It can support free-standing market umbrellas as large as 11 feet and comes in black or brown. We liked that this environmentally-friendly product is made from recycled plastic bottles.

Although we preferred the rolling feature of Shademobile, Abba is lower-profile and may be more appropriate for under-table use, particularly under a small table.

US Weight – 50-Pound Umbrella Base

We weren’t huge fans of the US Weight – 50-Pound Umbrella Base for several reasons. First, it’s limited for use with table-supported market umbrellas only, although we didn’t find it particularly stable even for this purpose. It can be filled with sand or gravel to about 40 pounds, or there’s a 50-pound pre-filled option available that includes a solid concrete core. Technically, water can be used but is not recommended by the manufacturer.

There is a single screw that is supposed to secured the pole after it is placed into the base; it doesn’t do an effective job. When used with a table for support, a market umbrella is reasonably stable in this stand, but we did not have the opportunity to test this setup in windy conditions. When we attempted to use this stand with a nine-foot free-standing market umbrella, the umbrella was extremely wobbly.

We liked that US Weight is smaller and lower-profile than Shademobile or Abba, with a convenient built-in handle that makes it easy to carry around. It was also the least expensive of the umbrella stands we tested. It can accommodate 1 inch to 1.7-inch umbrella poles. The material appears durable and is advertised to not crack or fade in any weather. The stand comes in five color options: black, sand, white, platinum silver or bronze.

How we selected

We began our search for the best patio umbrella and umbrella stand by exploring retailer ratings and user reviews online. We also delved into product offerings from major distributors of outdoor patio products like Home Depot, Lowe’s, Costco, Target, and Walmart. We then checked out Amazon: Best Rated Umbrellas and The Wirecutter.

Finally, we researched a range of related umbrella shopping guides that included Patio Living: Outdoor Umbrella Buying Guide and Overstock: Patio Umbrella Buying Guide. This narrowed our finalists down to seven patio umbrellas and three umbrella stands.

How we tested

Set-up

Our patio-umbrella and umbrella-stand finalists required varying levels of assembly from simple steps like placing the pole into the canopy to much more complicated instructions involving hardware and small tools. Our assembly tester, who is not particularly handy, was ultimately able to follow all instructions to complete assembly on all products.

The four market umbrellas were very easy to assemble. Two of the three umbrella bases were also fairly simple. The third, Shademobile, involved more steps and was helped along by a power screwdriver. Our assembler required a second pair of hands to assemble the three cantilever umbrellas due to heavy and awkward lifting. The cantilever umbrellas also required significantly more time. All hardware and most tools involved were included and clearly labeled in the boxes.

Opening mechanism

Once we had our products assembled, we spent some time repeatedly opening (and closing) our umbrellas. All of our finalists featured a crank-lift opening mechanism. Some of them, including Treasure Garden, Hampton Bay, and Abba were easier to operate than others because the handle turned more smoothly so the umbrella required less physical effort to adjust. We found ABCCANOPY to be particularly difficult to open and close.

Tilt and rotation mechanisms

Next, we set about adjusting the positions of our umbrellas by experimenting with tilt and rotation features. Three of our four market-umbrella finalists have a push-button tilt with three positions: upright or tilted to an approximately 30-degree angle on opposite sides of the pole. Beyond that, the poles could rotate in their bases to provide shade to additional areas. We generally found the push-button tilts challenging to maneuver due to both their height and less than smooth operation.

Our fourth market umbrella, Treasure Garden, offered a deluxe auto-tilt feature that operated on the same crank as the opening mechanism and made it very easy to tilt the umbrella. While it only tilted in one direction, the umbrella pole could be rotated to swivel the tilted canopy into any desired position.

The three cantilever umbrella finalists all used different tilt mechanisms. We preferred the long, sliding handle of Hampton Bay, which allows the user to choose any tilt position along the pole. We also found the five-position tilt handle of Abba very smooth to operate. The ABCCANOPY tilt was the trickiest to operate because it didn’t slide along the pole smoothly due to poor design and construction. On the positive side, it allowed the canopy to rotate a full 360 degrees.

Stability

Our stability tests had much more to do with the umbrella stands than the actual umbrellas. We found that all of our market patio umbrellas felt similarly stable when placed in the same umbrella stand. Shademobile was the most stable option. We also liked the Abba umbrella stand, which can be filled with water and is lower-profile for under-table use. The US Weight base is designed for use with a table-supported umbrella only. We didn’t find it particularly stable even in that situation.

Durability observations

All of our finalists endured several weeks of outdoor testing, some light rain, and a lot of tree leaves and sap. All products came through in good condition, and they were all easy to clean.

During this time, we took note of any noticeable design or construction flaws that might impact longer-lasting durability. For example, several canopies showed poor sewing technique with abundant unraveling threads throughout the canopy.

Types of patio umbrellas

There are two major types of patio umbrellas available: market umbrellas and cantilever umbrellas. Other less common types include sail, wall-mounted, and tiki umbrellas. These are all great paired with a zero gravity chair too.

Market umbrellas

A market umbrella, also known as a table umbrella, consists of an umbrella canopy attached to a pole in the center. The canopy is usually round or octagonal and comes in a wide variety of colors, designs, styles, and materials.

This type of umbrella is intended to be used with an umbrella stand, which is almost always sold separately. Depending on the style of umbrella stand, market umbrellas can be set up either free-standing or, more commonly, placed through the center hole of an outdoor dining table into a base. If you’d like to use your market umbrella in a free-standing manner, be sure to purchase an appropriately supportive umbrella base.

The vast majority of market umbrellas are ten feet in diameter or smaller, with a standard size of nine feet. For context, a nine-foot umbrella is large enough to shade an outdoor dining set that accommodates six to eight people. One major advantage of this type of umbrella is that, because it is relatively lightweight, it is easy to move around to different locations on your property. It is also easy to put away during bad weather and/or winter months.

Cantilever umbrellas

A cantilever umbrella has a swaying canopy that hangs down from a curved or angled pole attached to an offset, heavily weighted base. This style umbrella tends to be larger than nine feet and is used to shade collections of outdoor furniture, pools and hot tubs, hammocks, or other areas where you don’t want a pole to obstruct your living space.

This type of umbrella is heavier and more cumbersome to move than a market umbrella. Depending on the size, recommendations for cantilever-umbrella base weights can be over 200 pounds. When you factor in the weight of the actual umbrella, which can add another 50 to 100 pounds, moving around such an umbrella is challenging, even with multiple people helping out.

Sail umbrellas

A sail umbrella is a frameless canopy or piece of cloth. It is usually triangular or rectangular and can be attached to adjacent structures using hooks and/or ropes.

Wall-mounted umbrellas

Instead of attaching to a base with a vertical pole, like a market or cantilever umbrella, a wall-mounted umbrella comes with a jointed arm that is horizontally mounted to an exterior wall.

Tiki umbrellas

A tiki umbrella is similar to a market umbrella but has a thatched canopy. It almost always has a wooden frame and pulley-system opening mechanism.

Important features to consider

Size and shape:  A nine-foot umbrella, for example, is the standard size to shade a table for six to eight people.

While many umbrella canopies are round or octagonal, there are also rectangular and other shapes. A rectangular shape may be appropriate for shading the shallow end of a rectangular swimming pool, whereas a round canopy may better suit a hot tub.

Style: There are two major types: market or cantilever. If you are willing to have the pole of a market umbrella in the middle of your shaded space, this is a cheaper option, or cantilever types position the pole completely out of the way.

The canopy size may also factor into which style you should purchase since cantilever umbrellas tend to be larger.

Canopy fabric: Look for ones that are durable, fade-resistant, mold and mildew resistant, easy to clean, and that provide strong UV sun protection. Although high-quality, weather-resistant materials may cost substantially more initially, but can ultimately save you money.

Sunbrella: Sunbrella is considered the gold standard of outdoor fabrics. It is made from soft-to-the-touch, 100-percent eight-ounce solution-dyed acrylic. While many dyeing methods only treat the exterior of the fabric, which fades over time, the Sunbrella technology locks in colors by mixing them into the fabric before it is spun. This creates a more robust, color-safe result.

Sunbrella offers a three-year warranty against fading on their fabrics and the Skin Cancer Foundation has awarded a “Seal of Recommendation” for Sunbrella fabrics’ effectiveness in providing sun (UPF) protection and helping to prevent skin cancer.

Oatdura and Spuncrylic: Oatdura and Spuncrylic are very similar to Sunbrella and are also solution-dyed, fade-resistant, high-quality fabrics. They tend to be less expensive than the Sunbrella brand.

Olefin: This is another good option made from synthetic polypropylene or polyethylene. Although Olefin is nearly as color-fast as Sunbrella fabrics, it isn’t as soft. It provides good UV protection, is durable and easy to clean and offers a one-year warranty against fading.

Polyester: The most common material for canopies. It comes in many colors and patterns and is much kinder on the budget than high-end fabrics. It is also reasonably durable, quick to dry, lightweight and easy to maintain. However, not all polyesters are created equal. Look for thicker material with a higher rating number (i.e. 250-plus grams per square meter) for longer-lasting durability. Polyester will fade more quickly than Sunbrella or Olefin.

Frame materials: The umbrella frame includes the pole and ribs. Look for materials that are weather-resistant and rust-proof. Many umbrellas use aluminum which is lightweight, durable, budget-friendly, and can be finished in different coatings and colors.

Treated wood can prevent damage from moisture or insects. However, wood is more likely than other pole materials to snap in extremely windy conditions.

A fiberglass frame is the best option in windy weather since it is very lightweight and bendable, but it is also more expensive. Some umbrellas mix materials on the frame, such as using aluminum for the pole and fiberglass for the ribs.

Opening and tilt mechanisms: There are a variety of mechanisms used to open patio umbrellas.

Basic: Simply pushing the umbrella open until it clicks into place, similar to a simple rain umbrella.

Easy crank opening: This requires turning the crank one way to open the umbrella and the other direction to close it. This style is great on larger umbrellas since the canopies are heavy.

Pulley opening: Although not as common, some patio umbrellas use a pulley opening system. This is more common on wood-framed varieties.

Tilt function: Most patio umbrellas offer this, allowing the umbrella to tilt away from a horizontal angle in order to maximize shade.

Push-button tilt: Many market-style umbrellas use a push-button tilt which is located towards the top of the pole, just under the canopy, and can be reached when the umbrella is fully opened. For shorter people, reaching the tilt button can be a challenge. Some models tilt more smoothly than others.

Auto-tilt: One deluxe feature that we really like, particularly on large market umbrellas, is an auto-tilt. This works on the same crank mechanism used to open the umbrella. Once the umbrella reaches its maximum open position, you simply continue to crank the handle in the same direction and the umbrella will begin to tilt.

Wind resistance: Many patio umbrellas are equipped with a single wind vent to allow wind to pass through the fabric rather than pick it up like a sail. Some larger, high-end, or commercial-grade models offer double wind vents. During extreme wind conditions, we always recommend lowering your umbrella or storing it indoors.

Price: Cantilever umbrellas are usually more expensive than market umbrellas, but there are also budget options. Keep in mind that higher prices are often the result of more durable materials, and the umbrella will last longer as a result. Additional features add to the cost of a basic umbrella.

Stands: For market umbrellas, umbrella stands are almost always sold separately. Some are designed to support a free-standing umbrella, whereas others require the use of a table to provide additional stability.

Most cantilever umbrellas are sold with a crossbar base that requires weights. In most cases, base weights are purchased separately — although some cantilever umbrellas include both the crossbar and a more substantial base that can be filled with sand or gravel to secure and stabilize the umbrella.

For market umbrellas, one helpful guideline is to multiply the diameter of your umbrella by ten. So, for a nine-foot umbrella, you’d need a 90-pound base. If using a table to support your market umbrella, a 50-pound stand may be sufficient under most conditions.

Cantilever umbrellas require significantly more weight than market umbrellas in order to counterbalance the offset style. Recommended base weights can total over 200 pounds, though these are often divided into four parts for manageability.

The bottom line

Overall, we found that the best patio umbrella is Treasure Garden. This nine-foot market-style umbrella is well-designed, attractive and extremely durable. The soft-to-the-touch, fade-resistant, and easy-to-clean Sunbrella material, along with this product’s outstanding deluxe auto-tilt feature, combine to create a long-lasting and frustration-free umbrella that will provide ample shade on your patio for years into the future.

We recommend pairing Treasure Garden with the best umbrella stand —  Shademobile. This product offers excellent stability for either free-standing or table-supported market umbrellas. Because it has the unique feature of being on wheels, Shademobile makes it easy to roll your umbrella around to different areas of your patio in order to maximize your shade options.

Finally, because it accommodates up to 125 pounds of base weight in the form of bricks and/or sand, it can support large umbrellas.

If you’re looking to shade outdoor lounge furniture, a swimming pool, or something other than a basic outdoor dining set, you may want to consider a cantilever umbrella. The best cantilever umbrella we found is Hampton Bay’s 11-foot round-offset option. We appreciated the contemporary design, high-quality Olefin fabric, and easy-to-use crank and tilt mechanisms.

Best Overall: Treasure Garden

Enjoy your shaded patio this season (and for years to come!) The high-quality materials and construction, along with its deluxe auto-tilt feature, make this our stand-out pick for best patio umbrella.

See Price at Amazon.com

The post The Best Patio Umbrellas and Stands appeared first on Your Best Digs.

Table of contents

• The 8 hose reels we tested
• Best overall: AMES – 2519500 NeverLeak
• Best heavy-duty reel: Liberty Garden – 703-1
• Best portable: Liberty Garden – 871S
• Other products we tested
• How we selected
• How we tested
• The bottom line

The 8 hose reels we tested

Best overall: AMES – 2519500

Functional and attractive, the AMES – 2519500 is a sturdy, heavy-duty metal hose-reel cabinet with aluminum fittings that are much more secure than plastic fittings and are designed to resist rust and never leak. It has a few parts — water intake and outtake values and the cabinet’s feet — that need to be installed, but it takes only about 15 minutes to do.

We were especially impressed with the water intake valve, which can be installed in three different directions to accommodate the angle of connection between the leader hose and your outdoor water faucet. The intake valve’s angle can be changed at any time by simply unlocking the latches that hold it in place, so you can move the cabinet to face forward, to the right, and to the left.

Best Overall: AMES - 2519500

Sturdy and attractive, the AMES Hose Reel Cabinet can easily accommodate a 100' garden hose. Its aluminum fittings prevent rust and leaks.

See Price at Amazon.com

The cabinet is pretty weighty — coming in at 29 pounds — so you can unwind your hose without the cabinet sliding around. Because of the size of the cabinet itself and the heavy-duty reel, this AMES model can handily accommodate a 100′ garden hose, but we suspect that its roominess would also allow an additional 25′ or 50′.

The reel has an auto-tracking system that moves side to side as you crank the handle and neatly coils up the hose. The only issue we had with the auto-tracking is that sometimes the hose gets stuck on either end of the reel before the system resets when moving right to left or vice cersa. But all it takes is a little walk back of the hose and guiding it onto the reel by hand to get it back on track.

Despite its size, the AMES has a black-and-brown decorative wicker pattern that’s easy on the eye and keeps a low profile. Its perfectly flat top also comes in handy for holding garden tools while you’re working. The AMES is a bit more expensive than the plastic hose-reel cabinets, but from all indications during our testing, we’re confident that it will last for years.

Key takeaways:

• The AMES – 2519500 is solidly constructed of metal and has aluminum fittings that prevent rust and leakage.
• It has a sturdy, heavy-duty reel that can hold a rubber or vinyl 100′ garden hose.
• The cabinet has an effective auto-tracking system that neatly wraps the hose around the reel without kinks or bunching up.

Best heavy-duty reel: Liberty Garden – 703-1

The  703-1 is an entry-level steel reel from Liberty and it represents a great value for someone who’s tired of plastic garden tools.

Compared to the plastic reels, this is a bit heavier and inspires a lot more confidence. It isn’t that attractive — the beige powder-coating is fine, but the mixed zinc-plated and cast-brass fittings on the side are kind of hideous. You could mount this on your wall, but if that’s your plan you should know that Liberty Garden makes more decorative options that aren’t available in a freestanding style.

Best Heavy-Duty Reel: Liberty Garden -  703-1

Steel and brass construction puts plastic reels to shame, though it doesn't have the winding features or portability of our other picks.

See Price at Amazon.com

Compared to the Eley (which will set you back $100 more) this isn’t as nice, but the parallel side flanges on this reel caused fewer problems when winding. It’s also balanced lower to the ground, so it’s less likely to tip over if you yank hard on the hose.

The fittings all appear to be off-the-shelf plumbing parts, which means long-term maintenance should be simple. Everything about this reel is a noticeable step down in look and feel from the Eley, but functionally it’s a better reel.

If you want metal construction and a level-winder guide like our top pick, Liberty sells one, model 707, but it’s wall-mount-only and a lot more expensive.

This 703-1 reel is wide and sturdy and only minimal assembly was required. (A couple of wrenches are required for the lock-nuts on the handle.) It leaked around the inlet when we first assembled it, but after we tightened the fitting a bit more it never so much as dripped.

The most frustrating thing about this reel is pushing the rubber feet through the holes in the base; you’ll almost certainly need pliers to get them through. There are four cheap lawn stakes included if you want to keep this on grass instead of concrete.

Key takeaways:

• The Liberty Garden – 703-1 is well-built but still affordable.
• Steel components with a powder-coat finish should survive decades of gardening.
• It can be wall-mounted or free-standing.
• It has capacity for almost 200 feet of hose.
• It doesn’t help you wind neatly, but doesn’t get in the way.

Best portable: Liberty Garden – 871S Cart

Definitely give yourself an hour to put together the Liberty Garden – 871S Hose Reel Cart. Assembly isn’t difficult, and if you’re skilled with assembling the many pieces, bolts, and screws of an IKEA product, you shouldn’t have a problem.

The Liberty cart is actually a very good product. It’s almost entirely made of 13-gauge steel with an attractive bronze-colored powder-coating finish. The only parts that are not metal are the four 10″ inflatable rubber tires that are quite sturdy and constructed to withstand rocky terrain.

Best Portable: Liberty Garden - 871S

The all-metal Liberty Garden Hose Reel Cart has a sturdy reel that can store a 250' garden hose, and its tough rubber tires can handle uneven terrains.

See Price at Amazon.com

The substantial reel can certainly hold a regular 100′ garden hose. The manufacturer claims it can hold a 250′ hose, but in our opinion not without some effort. The reel doesn’t have a winding guide, so you need to manually guide the hose as you’re reeling to avoid it getting bunched up.

One oddity with the reel is that when you unwind the hose, the momentum causes the reel’s handle to unscrew and fall off. Since the manufacturer does not recommend tightening the handle too securely, you’ll have to deal with occasionally screwing it back on.

The Liberty cart has a 5′ leader hose with brass fittings that were secure and didn’t leak. One thing that we did notice, however, is a slight build-up of rust inside one of the connectors, and although we only had the cart for a week, stored outside, we were surprised to see the rust. We also noticed a spot of rust on the powder-coating finish, so although we can recommend the Liberty cart, we do wonder about how long the finish will last in wet conditions.

Key takeaways:

• The Liberty Garden Hose Reel cart needs to be assembled, but it’s easy to do.
• Made of 13-gauge steel, it’s sturdily designed with an attractive bronze-colored powder coating.
• During testing, we noticed tiny spots of rust that might make the cart not as durable in wet conditions.

Other products we tested

Suncast – 100′ Hose Hideaway

We previously tested and loved the Suncast – Swivel Hose Hideway (now discontinued), which we had selected as our top pick. So, naturally, we had high hopes for the Suncast – 100′ Hose Hideaway. We were, however, deeply disappointed with this smaller and lesser model. The Suncast – Hose Hideaway has two major problems.

First, it is absolutely impossible to coil a normal — vinyl or rubber – 100′ garden hose around its reel. The Suncast is simply too small and lightweight to hold a long length of hose. However, it could be used to store a 50′ hose or maybe a 75′ hose. The Suncast could probably be used for a 100′ expandable hose, since when emptied, it shrinks in size and could fit on the reel.

The second issue we had is that it leaks. The leader hose has brass fittings, but despite our best efforts, the connector to the faucet — no matter how tightened — leaked and sprayed water. As we mentioned in our prior review of the Suncast – Swivel Hose Hideaway, the reel is made of plastic, including the water out-flow connection, and again, we question this model’s durability in the long-term.

(Editor’s note: In 2023, we learned that four of the hose reels we previously tested and reviewed had been discontinued. Their reviews follow below.

Suncast – Swivel Hose Hideaway (Discontinued)

The Suncast – Swivel Hose Hideway is, all things considered, just a plastic garden hose reel. This model has a limited lifespan and reviews indicate the plastic hose fitting on the side won’t survive abuse. It’s not going to spontaneously fall apart but manage your expectations.

Keeping that in mind, this is an amazing reel for long hoses. We picked this model because it has a built-in winding guide (called a “level-winder unit” in industrial spooling applications for rope or cable) that keeps the hose evenly distributed so it doesn’t bunch or overlap on the reel.

We used two of the cheapest, stiffest 100-foot-long hoses we could find, and this reel wrapped up 240 feet without any need to rewrap or correct any overlaps on the spool that could cause binding.

When we originally tested, we found a Suncast model with a handy swiveling base — a great feature when you’ve got a super-long hose that you’re dragging all over the yard. The updated replacement features a set of wheels and a dolly-handle instead.

Note that no stakes came with ours, though the parts list says they should be included. We really do recommend staking down a reel with an extra-long hose. If you don’t, this box is light enough to drag across the grass or concrete when you’re struggling with a long hose.

Suncast has a version of this reel with upgraded brass fittings that we considered, but on the whole, the parts upgraded (internal tubes and threads) don’t seem to be the first to wear out. It’s the retaining clips that keep the inlet assembly together that give up first if you put a strain on the inlet hose, so we wish they would reinforce that part instead.

The biggest beef we have with this design is that the inlet hose fitting doesn’t have a spinning coupler: attach the hose to the reel side before you attach to your supply, or you’ll find yourself trying to figure out how to spin the entire box around to get the hose screwed in.

Suncast – Hosemobile (Discontinued)

Also from Suncast, the Hosemobile is a clever little hose cart that fits in any budget but doesn’t disappoint when you use it. Compared with the AMES – Fold & Store, it’s actually pretty shocking how much better this is.

The fixes are little things, like the angle of the outlet fitting where your hose connects: it’s made from the same cheap plastic, but the angle Suncast chose means it doesn’t force your hose sideways and cause leaks the way the Ames does.

This wheeled design doesn’t fold up and won’t take much abuse, but since the reel is only big enough for a smaller hose capacity, you’re not likely to overload the plastic construction. You could probably load 175 feet of hose if you carefully guide it into an even wrap, but 100-150 feet is a more realistic length if you’re just spooling quickly.

There’s no guide here to help your hose wrap evenly, but the slot in the handle does have two notches that effectively lock a 5/8″ hose in place. That and other little design touches, like the foot-pedal that sticks out to help you stabilize the reel, help make up for the materials.

Eley – Rapid Reel (Discontinued)

We bought the Eley – Rapid Reel to see just how much better a hose reel can get if you throw money at the problem. The answer kind of surprised us: this is the nicest hose reel, but it actually doesn’t do its job as well as the less expensive models we tested.

As expected, the components included are all impressive. Even the purpose-built two-size allen wrench included for assembly is impressive: heavy-duty and with a nice finish. The cast-brass fittings on the leader hose are gorgeous and easy to grip without tools, a nice upgrade over other cheap pack-in hoses.

The fact that there’s an adjustable reel brake is a testament to the thought that goes into these reels. Likewise, the loop of webbing that secures the hose to the reel is a nice touch. Neither of those features is really necessary, though.

This reel will undoubtedly survive more weather (and abuse) than a cheap plastic reel, but an extra hundred dollars doesn’t solve all the problems in the world of garden hose reels. The sloping flanges on either side push the hose toward the center as it winds; if you aren’t careful when quickly winding a long hose it might start to overlap itself.

We squeezed on 215 feet of hose and the reel still turned freely, but even at 150 feet, the overlapping problem is frustrating. Eley rates this model for 175 feet of standard ⅝” hose, but we wouldn’t recommend it as-sold for much more than 125 feet.

Eley sells an extra-capacity kit to make the reel wider for long hoses and that would make the overlapping and bunching less problematic, but that brings the total cost for your stationary hose reel north of $200. On the bright side, installing the kit gives you an excuse to use that really nice Allen wrench again!

AMES – Fold & Store (Discontinued)

The AMES – Fold & Store hose cart checks a lot of boxes on the feature list: it folds for storage, it has wheels to make dragging it around easier, it has a storage bin in the bottom and the slot in the handle even works as a built-in winding guide.

It’s not that great in person, though. We’re not going to fault a plastic hose reel for being made from plastic, but the way the outlet fitting sits on the reel means there’s a lot of strain on it if you use a stiff hose. One of our cheap hoses has a kink-preventing strain relief sleeve that makes the end five inches very stiff; the sideways force against the fitting on this reel make it leak pretty severely.

Cutting off the strain-relief sleeve made our hose fit better, though it still leaked. Some thread-sealing tape or an extra gasket could probably take care of all the leaking, but you shouldn’t have to use extra tools to get a fit that doesn’t leak.

The way this reel sits in the frame, the side flanges don’t have any extra room to bend or expand out before they’ll start to rub as the reel turns. The flanges are bar-shaped rather than full circles (which does mean it takes up less space when folded), so when you get more than 100 feet of hose loaded they make a repeated “thwack, thwack, thwack” as you’re turning the handle.

The slot in the handle doesn’t actually do much to keep your hose tidy on the reel, either; mostly it just keeps your garden hose nozzle in place for storage.

How we selected

Research for this category was tricky, since there are so many different models and styles available, and since the flaws that kill a hose reel depend mostly on how much abuse you’re putting it through.

As always, we scanned the retailer pages for ratings and user reviews and found that most people were fairly forgiving of garden hose reel design; so long as a reel works and doesn’t break right away, most people are happy with what they get.

In the end, we tried three reels made of plastic and two made from steel. We splurged a bit on the Eley – Rapid Reel, if only to see how much better a really expensive model is.

The Powerwind and Aquawind features on other Suncast models looked like features that would make the reel too much of a pain to set up and use for the little benefit offered, so we skipped them.

We also checked into designs that are basically air hose reels. They’re retractable and durable, but you’ll see a dramatic reduction in flow with the tiny-diameter hoses they come with. We decided to only look at reels that will work with the hose you already have.

A big, heavy-duty garden hose cart with wheels sounds like a great idea, but the affordable products we found have terrible reviews. Reviews of the four-wheel carts we looked at had reports of nightmarishly difficult assembly and raised big questions about long-term durability. We bought two plastic two-wheeled carts because they’re cheap and popular; the metal two-wheel designs all seem to have stability issues and even those cost a lot more money than we expected.

How we tested

For a month of spring yard work, we used these hose reels with 50 feet of our favorite rubber hose and two 100-foot lengths of the cheapest, stiffest hose we could find.

Setting up each hose reel required slightly different steps, but only the most expensive hose reel actually required any setup work: The Eley came as a box of parts and fasteners. (They were very nice fasteners, though, and the custom-made giant Allen wrench is well made.)

We then moved through a series of specific tests to pinpoint any strengths or flaws in the designs of these reels.

Build quality

We ranked the reels based on how we felt about the materials and design after testing. All the plastic reels scored a three here; we didn’t note anything that made a particular reel feel sub-standard. The Eley, naturally, scored a perfect five — it’s practically a showpiece for careful manufacturing with good materials.

Coiling and uncoiling at capacity

The way a reel coils and pays out hose is really the most important thing about it and we were surprised at the way our most expensive reel, the Eley, bunched up and overlapped the hose as we used it.

In contrast, the Smart Trak system on the Suncast – Swivel Hose Hideaway won us over immediately with fast, even, tight coiling. It’s not perfect; if you feed a tight kink into the guide it’ll probably mess up your winding job. That said, if you lay out your hose so it has room to untwist, even a stiff vinyl hose will wind very easily.

We tested the capacity of the reels with the same hose to see how they compare to each other: the manufacturers rate their reel capacity based on some unknown ⅝” hose and they don’t specify how picky they were about neat winding.

Leak tests

We don’t expect a threaded hose fitting to be leak-free without enough torque to make things snug, but a reel often needs to be connected without tools and we wanted to see how they compared. The cheap hoses we tested with only had basic gaskets and we tightened by hand.

The Liberty and AMES reels were the only ones that dripped. The Liberty stopped dripping after we gave the inlet fittings (where the included leader hose connects) some more torque by hand.

The AMES – Fold & Store was leaking at the elbow-shaped outlet fitting where your garden hose attaches to the reel and because of the side-pressure our stiff hose put on it, the Ames never stopped leaking while the hose was coiled.

The bottom line

If you want a reel that will survive decades of sun, rain and abuse, the Liberty 703-1 is well-built and affordable. It held almost 200 feet of bulky, stiff hose and it should be easy to repair or replace the metal fittings.

The AMES – 2519500 is also a well-built and stylishly designed metal cabinet that makes reeling up a long garden hose a breeze. It’s also manufactured to hold up in harsh weather conditions.

If you’re looking for a portable hose reel, the Liberty Garden – 871S cart will make your life easier if you have a large property and need to move your hose to different sections of the garden.

Top Pick: AMES - 2519500

Thanks to this reel's sturdy construction, auto-track system for reeling in the hose, and attractive finish, the AMES - 2519500 should be high on your list to purchase.

See Price at Amazon.com

The post The 8 Best Hose Reels appeared first on Your Best Digs.

Table of contents

• The seven zero-gravity chairs we tested
• Top pick: Timber Ridge
• Budget pick: Amazon Basics
• Best with a canopy: Best Choice Products
• Other products we tested
• How we selected
• How we tested
• The bottom line

The 7 zero-gravity chairs we tested

(Editor’s note: For this 2023 update, we tested two different zero-gravity chairs. See their reviews in the “Other products we tested” section below.)

Top pick: Timber Ridge

The Timber Ridge – Oversized XL Zero Gravity Chair doesn’t come at the bargain price of some other models, but it’s enough of an upgrade that at around a hundred dollars, we think it’s worth splurging on.

The Best Overall: Timber Ridge

This is a nice upgrade over the other models we tested. Better materials, better design and a cupholder that stays with the chair when folded. The cost is double, but it’s a much better product.

See Price at Amazon.comSee Price at Target.com

If you want to commit to a chair that gives you neutral posture for everyday use, this is definitely the model we’d pick. The seat reclines farther than any of the others; if you take the pillow off, your head is just below the level of your knees.

The colors and pattern of the Timber Ridge are a bit bolder than the other models, too, which means it might be harder to match with your decor.

One note on materials: the Timber Ridge uses padding in the seat and wood in the armrests. (It could be maple, but manufacturer/distributor Westfield Outdoor doesn’t say what kind of wood it is.) These are nice touches that really make the chair look and feel nicer, but they do make this less ideal for patio use.

The padding dries in a few hours on a sunny day and the wood seems treated to repel water, but this chair just won’t handle long-term exposure to sun and rain as well as the plastic armrests and mesh seats on the other designs. There are versions of this chair made from mesh and plastic instead, if you like the design but need it to survive more weather; however, you don’t save much money.

Key takeaways:

• Timber Ridge makes the best-built zero gravity chair with nicer materials and a padded seat.
• The folding and reclining action of this design are much smoother than on the rest of the chairs.
• A lock that’s solid and engages easily makes this a more trustworthy recliner.
• The included cupholder works well and can actually stay attached when the chair is folded.

Budget pick: Amazon Basics

The Amazon Basics – Zero Gravity Chair is a great example of Amazon’s branding strategy. They’ve taken a popular product, found a reliable manufacturer and ordered a special version with all the essential features in an affordable package.

With only one sample from each manufacturer represented, it’s difficult to say how variable quality control will be. But of the chairs we received, Amazon’s is just a bit better than the others in the budget price bracket. The folding and reclining action is smoother, and there are fewer loose threads.

Budget Pick: Amazon Basics

Amazon picks good suppliers for their Basics offerings, and this is the best of the inexpensive chairs that we tested. If the locking system were easier to use, at this price it might have taken our top pick.

See Price at Amazon.com

The locking mechanism on this model is a simple twist-knob that presses a cam lobe against a sliding tube; it’s the same mechanism on the Belleze, but it’s easier to tighten on Amazon’s. It’s possible to twist the cam-style lock tight enough that you can sit up or shift your weight and the chair will stay in a half-reclined position. In comparison, the friction-sleeve lock on the chair from Best Choice will start to slip if you put any real pressure on it.

Amazon’s model, whether by design or by some accident, reclines a little lower than the other budget models as well. The back goes down to the same 34-degree angle as the Timber Ridge chair, though this one doesn’t elevate the knees quite as much.

A cupholder is easy to add, but a matched-fabric canopy is not going to be so simple. We think the better design and quality control is more important, but if you’re going to use this as a beach chair and don’t want to bring an umbrella or other shade, the canopy on the Best Choice chair might be worth more than Amazon’s superior lock.

Key takeaways:

• Amazon Basics uses established manufacturers to make a bare-bones version of a popular product, and the formula works perfectly here.
• This zero gravity chair reclines almost as well as the Timber Ridge but with less impressive materials.
• The friction lock can be tightened as much as you need to secure this chair, but it’s not our favorite system.
• No canopy or cupholder, but we think the better quality is worth that sacrifice.

Best with a canopy: Best Choice Products

The Best Choice Products – Zero Gravity Chair is an attractive set of features on paper: for the same price as the other value leaders, you get an easy-to-use flip-lever lock, a built-in canopy and a detachable cupholder.

The value-added accessories are pretty good, but the core design of this chair isn’t our favorite. The friction-sleeve this chair uses to lock isn’t very secure, if you want the chair back to stay in position when you move around.

The canopy and cupholder aren’t better than traditional patio tables or umbrellas: the cupholder is a bit wobbly, and the canopy won’t keep you from getting sunburned. That said, they’re functional.

Best with a Canopy: Best Choice Products

The lock on this model isn't as secure as our other top picks, but if you really want a canopy to shield your face from the sun, then this is the model we'd recommend.

See Price at Amazon.com

The cupholder tray gives you a slot for a tablet or magazine as well as a cell phone and two full-size cups. Sadly, it doesn’t have a place to stay on the chair when you fold it for storage; the canopy clips neatly to the back.

So far as we can tell, this is the same design as the Bliss Hammocks design that shows up on QVC, though without the variety of fabric patterns offered there.

Strangely enough, the version Best Choice Products is offering in a two-pack for ridiculous prices is more like our bottom-pick Belleze model than like this one. The twist-lock design and pinched-tube footrest joints are a giveaway, and at $34 per chair you could be playing a lottery, hoping to get one that doesn’t have problems like our Belleze chair does.

You can easily find the cupholder accessory to add on to other models, but a matching add-on canopy is going to be nearly impossible to get. If the canopy is a must-have, and you don’t need to lock your chair securely in a semi-reclined position, this is a good price.

Key takeaways:

• Best Choice Products includes a canopy and cupholder to make your sunny-day reading that much more relaxing.
• The friction lock is easy to engage with the flip of a lever, but it’s not very tight.
• The quality of this chair is almost as good as the Amazon Basics model, though at these prices we wonder how consistent they’ll be.

For this 2023 update, we tested two different zero-gravity chairs, Maison Arts, and Ever Advanced, the reviews of which immediately follow.

Maison Arts

The Maison Arts zero-gravity chair we purchased was labeled Phi Villa, a company that specializes in outdoor furniture, and after some research it appears that Maison Arts — which has its own furniture line — is selling a few Phi Villa products. Adding to the confusion, the Maison Arts Amazon page states in small print that its furniture is actually sold by Homeworld Store.

Whoever actually makes the Maison Arts anti-gravity chair manufactures a very good product. It’s easy to fold/unfold, and its steel frame is solidly constructed. The chair padding is comfortable, and when fully reclined, your entire body feels supported. The padding is made of Oxford fabric, so it’s designed to withstand outdoor weather and resists fading by the sun. Bungee cords and steel eyelets are also well made and secure.

The catch lock is a bit stiff, however, but it does lock the chair firmly in place. We take issue, though, that the lock mechanism is made of plastic, and with repeated use, it could snap off, rendering the chair useless.

The Maison Arts zero-gravity chair comes with a cupholder tray that’s identical to other accessory trays you can purchase elsewhere. The tray, however, doesn’t fold up with the chair, but it can be stored inside the chair when it’s folded up.

Ever Advanced

The Ever Advanced zero-gravity chair is $20 more expensive than the Maison Arts chair and not nearly as comfortable. Build-wise, it’s very similar — if not identical — to other zero-gravity chairs.

It has a solid steel frame with a mottled pattern, which you might think is interesting or ugly, although most of the models are made of aluminum instead — lightweight but not especially durable. The Ever Advance chair is marketed as over-sized, but at 22″ wide, it’s really not.

The tray accessory folds up when the chair is folded up, but it’s tricky sliding the tray out again and attaching it to beneath the armrest. The plastic lock is a lever, and when released, rather than an automatic slow lowering of the bottom half of the chair, it simply slams to the ground.

Our testers also found the Ever Advanced more difficult to recline, requiring more leg effort. The chair’s fabric is padded, but it’s quite thin, and so when we were fully reclined, we felt no support on the back, the lower back in particular, and it just wasn’t enjoyable lying on for a period of time.

Caravan Sports – Infinity Oversized

Put simply, Caravan Sports took a great idea and executed it poorly. The Infinity Oversized chair is four inches wider than most, and the locking mechanism is a good budget version of the locking rail design that Timber Ridge uses.

The flaws are in whatever modifications the design team made to the lengths of the frame pieces and joints. We haven’t figured out exactly where the change is, but you have to push really hard with your feet on the footrest bar, much more than with any of the others.

If this were the only zero gravity recliner you ever tried, you would probably write off the whole concept. It’s hard to use and doesn’t recline very far, and the joints flex in a scary way if you put your weight on the armrests.

Belleze (Discontinued)

Editor’s note: In 2023, we learned that the Belleze Zero Gravity Chair is no longer available on Amazon, and the Belleze website has a limited number in limited colors.)

We picked the Belleze – Zero Gravity Chair to test because it’s available in a two-pack for a very low price-per-chair, and it includes a cupholder and canopy for the same price as the bare-bones Amazon chair.

Sadly, the quality here isn’t quite up to the same standards as the other chairs. The lock design is the same as the Amazon Basics chair, but it isn’t as smooth and it takes more effort to get it really locked.

The elastic support on this chair wasn’t as strong as on the other models, either, despite the 300-pound rated capacity. The final nail in the coffin? The canopy won’t stay in the clipped storage position: it pops out after a few minutes, flopping around as a pathetic indicator that nobody actually tested this feature after assembly.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but with the other options available we wouldn’t buy one of these chairs again, let alone a two-pack.

How we selected

As always, we began our journey with a search for enthusiasts and professional reviews. Sadly, even Reddit has barely any information about what’s good and bad about the various options, and review sites we found are pretty much copy-and-paste collections of affiliate links and advertising copy.

If you only hear a passing reference to zero gravity chairs and follow up with a Google search, you might be convinced that this is originally and exclusively a type of patio furniture.

In fact, there are some very nice-looking and expensive ergonomic and therapeutic chair designs, but we know that most consumers are not in a position to buy $3,000 chairs. (We hope that if you are, the retailer will let you sit in a bunch of them first to see how you like them. Let us know if you find anything out.)

To narrow our list of contenders, we set a budget of $150 and picked the top-selling models, eliminating designs that had fewer than 300 reviews on Amazon, Walmart and Target, or that appeared to be built the same way as other chairs. Reviews of these chairs average in the 4-5 star range without any clear lemons, so we were expecting this to be a tight race.

How we tested

For four solid weeks, our tester family used these chairs in a living room and outside on the patio and lawn with guests. They’re all compact enough when folded to fit one or two in a trunk if you want to take them to the park or beach, though they’re much larger and heavier than our favorite ultra-light chairs. We manage to squeeze five of them in the back of a mini-van to take over to a friend’s move-in party.

One tester has some mild chronic back pain. He experimented with using some of these chairs in a home office: if you can support your laptop or monitor in a good position, it works. It’s more awkward than sitting on a balance ball at a desk, since the chair takes up so much space, but it’s a surprisingly comfortable setup so long as you’re not craning your neck to see a screen.

Build quality

With a piece of furniture that costs less than a C-note, expectations are low. That said, we did dock points for any problems with materials or quality control.

The biggest complaints are for models that cut corners: Belleze seems to have used inferior elastic and skimped on quality control. The Caravan Sports chair has joints that wiggle and fasteners that stick out. It’s not easy to see the problems when you’re just looking at the chairs, but after sitting on them all we started to notice the losers.

Recline performance

Reclining these chairs is basically the central purpose of their design. All the chairs require you to push out with your feet on the bar at the end of the footrest if you want to easily recline them; it’s not quite as easy as the lever on your grandpa’s recliner. On the better chairs, we found they offered a consistent and reliable way to ease the back of the chair down smoothly.

The Timber Ridge is the only chair that really tries to get your knees elevated. Strictly speaking, the angle of recline isn’t a factor in the NASA neutral-body-position spec (since it’s built around floating astronauts rather than people sitting in a gravity-laden environment), but elevating the legs is one commonly cited benefit among those who really like these chairs.

Locking mechanism

Each chair has a locking mechanism that should prevent it from reclining or shifting back up unexpectedly. Of the chairs we tested, our three 17-inch-wide chairs use a simple friction lock to stop a tube from sliding, while the wider chairs (like our top pick) use a rack of teeth to allow a more secure grip.

The friction locks worked better or worse depending on how tight we could get them. Amazon’s chair and the Belleze use a knob that can be tightened more than the two-position lever on the Best Choice model, though if you want the chair to stay reclined half-way down you’ll have to make them pretty tight.

What is a zero gravity chair?

What would your posture be like if you didn’t weigh anything? What’s the most neutral position for arms, legs, spine and neck?

NASA tried to answer that question when measuring body positions of crew members aboard the Skylab space station and early shuttle missions in the ’70s and ’80s. The man-system integration standards were intended to help solve problems for crew members in space, but they’ve since been applied to designs on the ground, like ergonomic car seats and these “zero gravity” chairs.

Designing around the “average” turns out to be a bad fit for some people, and NASA’s follow-up studies aboard shuttle missions have pretty thoroughly debunked the idea that you could find one posture that would be perfect for everyone. That said, lying back with your hips bent and knees elevated has proven more comfortable than the slab-like position many recliners and lounge chairs offer.

The “Perfect Chair” from Human Touch is one of the early examples of a furniture company applying the NASA standards to a chair design that promises relief for back pain and pressure points. It’s a pretty pricey chair, though.

Some brilliant and unknown engineer somewhere figured out how to make neutral-posture reclining work on a mass-production scale with bent steel tubing and plastic joints, and thanks to that clever manufacturing you can have a part of NASA’s legacy on your patio or in your living room for less than $50.

The bottom line

We tested the range of quality that’s available for these chairs, and you definitely get what you pay for. At just over $100, the Timber Ridge zero gravity chair is made of nicer materials and is nicer to use in every way. Everyone who sat in this chair was impressed. It reclines father than the rest, and the cupholder doesn’t have to come off to put it away.

Best Overall: Timber Ridge

Great material and great design make this a great folding chair. This is the best implementation of the neutral-posture experience we found.

See Price at Amazon.comSee Price at Target.com

If you just want an inexpensive chair for your patio that you don’t want to worry about leaving in the rain, Amazon Basics has a good budget model to try. It’s relatively smooth and you can crank the lock knobs down to make it secure, but it’s definitely a step down from our top pick.

For those who want an all-in-one folding lounge setup, Best Choice Products is the chair we like best. If you need the back to stay halfway up, the lock on this model will disappoint, but it’s a good value if that’s not on your radar.

The post The 7 Best Zero-Gravity Chairs appeared first on Your Best Digs.

Table of contents

• The 4 string trimmers we tested
• 1. Best overall: Black+Decker – LST136W
• 2. Best for heavy work: Ego – Power+ 1502-SF
• Other products we tested
• How we selected
• How we tested
• How to edge-trim your lawn
• Types of trimmers
• Important features to consider
• The bottom line

The 4 string trimmers we tested

Brand	Price	Cutting Width	Cutting Ability	# of Strings	Tested Run Time (Minutes)
1. BLACK+DECKER - LST136W	$$$	13"	4/5	1	33
2. EGO - Power+ ST1502-S	$$$$$	15"	5/5	2	36
3. Greenworks - 2101602	$$$	12"	3/5	2	40
4. Ryobi - RY40220	$$$$	13–15"	1/5	2	34

1. Best overall: Black+Decker – LST136W

The Black+Decker – LST136W is a compact, lightweight but powerful trimmer that will be ideally suited to most home edging and trimming needs.

Weight is a big consideration here: we liked how easy it was to carry this trimmer around. The fact that it can be collapsed to a smaller size for storage is a great bonus. The other tools fold or come apart, but that makes for an unwieldy package.

None of the conveniences would be a worthwhile trade-off if this trimmer couldn’t keep up with the cutting tasks, but Black+Decker managed to hit a sweet spot for efficiency and power. The motor tackled thick, overgrown grass that bogged down even the big Ryobi trimmer, and it managed to cut heavy stalks (like the pictured fig-tree shoots) better, too.

If you’re dealing with household chores like trimming lawn edges and cutting weeds around flower beds, this trimmer does amazing work given how light it is.

Best Overall: Black+Decker - LST136W

This is all the trimmer most people will need in a lightweight, high-performance package. Perfect for city lawns and gardens, it also out-cuts some bigger models if you take it out to the back 40.

See Price at Amazon

Even better, there’s an easy-to-use speed dial that will vary the amount of juice the motor is using: if you’re just trimming a bit of grass or light weeds, you can turn it down and get even longer runtime from the battery. We ran all our tests with the power cranked up to full and were still satisfied with the battery capacity, but it’s nice to know that you can go for longer if you’re not pushing the performance envelope.

There are definitely jobs that this trimmer is too small for, but the motor and battery aren’t really the limiting factor. If you’re working around sharp stones or tough plants like vines, then the 0.065-inch trimming line will disappear quickly.

With unexpected line breaks, and it was sometimes frustrating having to wait for the Black+Decker’s automatic feed system to pay out more line. We even bypassed it a few times by opening up the spool and unwinding a few turns manually after losing a big chunk of string. Bigger machines with 0.080-inch line won’t last too much longer when dealing with tough material, but they are designed to quickly feed out more line after it breaks.

Probably the biggest disappointment of this machine is the length of the shaft and the difficulty of attaching a standard shoulder strap bracket. If you’re much taller than six feet, you might be annoyed by how far you need to stretch your arms to reach the ground with the optimal cutting angle.

Adding a shoulder strap helps, since your arms aren’t carrying all the weight anymore. Since the shaft of this tool is too thick for a “universal” strap bracket, we had to improvise an attachment point; it’s not pretty, but it works. If you’re shorter in stature, the adjustable-length shaft is very easy to set at exactly the right length for good posture and easy work.

Key takeaways:

• The Black+Decker – LST136W is the lightest trimmer we tested and collapses neatly for easy storage.
• The weight savings don’t cost you much in terms of cutting power, and we were impressed with how capable this 13” trimmer is in the field.
• 33 minutes of working time is close to average, but there’s a handy power dial feature to save power when you’re only doing light cutting.

2. Best for heavy work: Ego – Power+ 1502-SF

If you scoff at the term “lightweight” and are looking for a battery-powered trimmer to replace a gas model, Ego’s Power+ ST1502-SF is made to fit your needs.

With a higher-voltage “Power+” battery system that pumps up the wattage available to its motor, Ego’s trimmer also uses commercial-grade 0.095-inch line that will cut heavier material better than any of the other electric trimmers we tested.

For Heavier Work: Ego - Power+ 1502-SF

For overgrown grasses and big weeds: Ego’s 15-inch trimmer is quiet and powerful. Its commercial-grade line effectively cut through thick growth better than any of the other electrics we tested.

See Price at Home Depot

The available power comes at a price: with only 36 minutes of runtime despite the massive 2.5 amp-hour battery, this machine is just barely viable for big jobs on an acreage. (This trimmer runs at a higher voltage than the others, so the battery has more cells inside.) It’s heavy enough to make your shoulders and back sore the first couple of weeks you use it. That said, this is lighter than the Ryobi 15” trimmer or a gas-powered model, and a shoulder strap is a good idea anyhow.

Fortunately, the battery charger got the same treatment as the rest of the machine, with an integrated cooling fan and beefy power supply. The charger reliably refilled the 2.5 AH battery in less than 45 minutes. That’s impressive even compared to the Greenworks charging system, which only had to refill 2.0 AH and took an hour.

We don’t really have anything bad to say about the Ego trimmer, and it was far more powerful than the Ryobi’s competing model, but we found that for city lawn work it was a bit overkill.

You can definitely do most of the jobs this trimmer will do with the Black+Decker, and our top pick has a wire guide and rotating head for easy edging jobs. The Ego’s hand grip lets you hold the trimmer sideways to do edging, but it doesn’t feel like a purpose-built solution the way our top pick does.

Key takeaways:

• The Ego – Power+ 1502-SF has a 15-inch cutting head with commercial-grade cutting string and a 36-minute runtime.
• Ego has dropped the gauntlet and puts gasoline-powered toolmakers on notice. There are still pros who don’t have the option of waiting for a battery to charge every half-hour, but for the rest of us, this is the best big trimmer to buy.

Other products we tested

3. Greenworks – 2101602 G-MAX

Greenworks has released the 2101602 trimmer as part of their G-MAX system, and while it doesn’t make top grade, it’s a very capable machine.

The biggest hindrance to this trimmer is weight and ergonomics. While the Black+Decker tool weighs in at a very slim 6.8 pounds, Greenworks only managed 7.8, with a smaller battery, and with a drop in cutting power.

The performance of this trimmer is acceptable for most situations: the line only reaches 12-inches in diameter compared to the Black+Decker’s 13-inch, but Greenworks has two lines spinning at the same time as the big 15-inch trimmers do.

We felt that they were on fairly equal footing in terms of cutting power if you dial back the Black+Decker control wheel to 85 percent power, which roughly matches any difference in runtime, too.

If you don’t think you’ll ever want to cut anything heavier than grass, the Greenworks will save you some money and charges a bit more quickly, but we really liked the option of bumping up the power just a little bit with Black+Decker’s system.

The one case where we’d recommend this trimmer over the Black+Decker is if you’re much taller than six feet. The Greenworks trimmer’s longer reach makes it a bit easier to find a balanced handle position, and mounting a “universal” shoulder strap isn’t as tricky.

4. Ryobi – RY40220

The Ryobi line won top spot in Consumer Reports’ roundup, and The Wirecutter liked this one enough to give it runner-up pick.

The Ryobi – RY40220 trimmer gives you a ton of options. If the first thing you’re looking for is a tool system that will let you do hedge trimming, roto-tilling, and leaf blowing with a single battery and motor module, then it might be worth considering.

Sadly, Ryobi’s lawn tools aren’t compatible with their cordless shop tools. Ryobi’s 40-volt system doesn’t offer nearly the same power as the Ego 56-volt system, either, nor is it significantly cheaper.

On the whole, this trimmer was pretty disappointing. It’s loud: not nearly as loud as a two-cycle gas engine, but far louder than any of the other electric trimmers we tested. It’s also heavy, about one pound shy of a gas-powered trimmer and two pounds more than the Ego (despite that bigger battery).

In thick, tall grass or against stout weeds, the Ryobi just didn’t seem to have enough power to keep up. The worst-case scenario for this particular tool seems to be thick grass: clumps of tall quackgrass that Black+Decker’s lightweight trimmer buzzed through easily seemed to be too much for Ryobi’s motor or drive system.

On vines and thick stalks like the fig saplings pictured above, the motor would slow down enough that the cutting string started wrapping instead of cutting, and we had to move much more slowly and more deliberately to cut weeds efficiently with this trimmer.

Those tough-cutting situations are not great for any weed whackers since tough stalks and vines will also start wearing and breaking your trimmer line. We’d prefer to use up the line more quickly, though, if it means we can get through occasional patches of heavy weeds without bogging down.

Ryobi’s bump-feed system works well, with slightly more consistent re-loading than Ego’s, so it’s not a total failure as a serious tool. Without more power to cut through tough spots, though, the refinement seems a bit of a waste.

Ryobi has also faced some criticism in customer reviews over the batteries they sell. Some users are reporting that their batteries won’t charge anymore after a few months. There are some unrealistic expectations in the Home Depot customer reviews: cordless lawn tools shouldn’t be expected to run for more than 30 working minutes. Failing to charge, though, is a serious problem.

We haven’t had any problems with our Ryobi battery yet, and we didn’t see the problem mentioned in the other major reviews, but we’ll update if ours kicks the bucket.

How we selected

First, we looked at reviews and customer feedback for the top-selling trimmers on the market. We also covered the top-placing trimmers from publications like Consumer Reports and the Wirecutter.

We reviewed battery-powered trimmers, because, let’s face it, two-stroke gasoline engines are noisy, smelly, and expensive. Gas trimmers earn a place on the trucks of professionals with top power and long run-times, but most homeowners will be happy with clean, quiet and simple battery power.

While we set out to test battery-powered trimmers, we also used some other tools alongside our test lineup for comparison. We included a gas-powered Stihl – FS 70 R in our tests to see how the electric trimmers compare to the industry-standard workhorse that’s already doing the heavy work for landscapers and ranchers. We also purchased and used a plug-in edge trimmer and trencher, the Black+Decker – LE750.

We picked a set of top-ranked trimmers in two size categories: trimmers with 15-inch cutting heads as well as compact 12-to-13-inch machines. We bought from brands with good reputations for warranty coverage that are available at major retailers. (In comparison, many commercial-grade brands like Stihl are only available through a dealer network.)

When selecting a trimmer from Ego, we picked the best-priced package at the time, the 1502-S. Ego’s model numbers are a composite of the trimmer model, battery size, and extra features. This kit includes a 2.5 AH battery and the 1500 trimmer with “split-shaft” folding for storage. This review has a table that explains the differences in kit accessories and features.

There’s a new model that has replaced the -S, called the -SF, with a “rapid reload” head in addition to the split shaft. Everything else about the kit is the same, so we’ve updated links in this review to point to that kit instead.

How we tested

In addition to testing for lawn-duty use in the city, we sent this lineup of trimmers to an avocado orchard in southern California. The trimmers arrived at the ten-acre grove just in time to begin work cleaning up all the weeds that had sprung up after a fall fertilizer application. Our testers cut weeds ranging from mundane dandelions and crab grasses up to the imposing four-foot-tall horse thistles.

The orchard already uses a selection of gas-powered trimmers, mostly mid-size Stihl models like the FS 70 R. We’ve included direct comparisons to the Stihl where it makes sense, but as context rather than as a purchase recommendation: we believe that most home users are going to be happier with a cordless electric trimmer.

Weight

As mentioned in our section on features, none of these trimmers were supplied with a shoulder strap, but they really should be. We tested each model without a strap for a few weeks before ordering a generic strap from Amazon.

These trimmers are quite light compared to the gas-powered engines that professional landscapers are using for hours at a time, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy on your shoulders and back. If you’re only planning to do quick touch-up trimming, the Black+Decker – LST136W is not too bad without a shoulder strap; for any other purpose, get a strap.

Cutting ability

This was one of the trickier values to test for. Each of these trimmers will cut grass easily, but the upper limit of cutting capacity is harder to define.

We measured the biggest weed stalks that could be cut cleanly by each trimmer. We tried to bog down the trimmers in extra-dense grasses. We even skirmished with some materials like saplings and vines that are just too tough to cut effectively with string trimmers.

The wattage rating here is a value derived from the nominal capacity and voltage of each battery system divided by how long the trimmers run before shutting off. Between batteries with the same capacity and voltage, a shorter run-time means more wattage is being pulled by the motor.

The chart above rates each tool on a scale of five based on how effectively it cut, but note that the smaller trimmers use a thin line that disappears quickly if you’re cutting tough woody material.

There are a lot of similarities between trimmers of the same size, but each manufacturer has taken its own approach to find a balance of power, battery life, and weight.

The Ego trimmer has impressive power, ripping through all but the very toughest weeds. The other trimmers stopped cutting green leafy weeds when stalks got bigger than 0.45 inch, though the Ryobi trimmer often failed on anything bigger than 0.35 inch.

Gas trimmers probably have enough power to cut through very thick material, but the trimming line will usually start to wear away before you reach the limit of engine power.

Line advance

The different systems used to release more cutting string have their strengths and failings, but we ranked them here based on how easily and quickly we could get back to cutting at full speed after a rock or vine ate away at our trimmer string.

The automatic-feed systems are okay for general use, but for cutting in the field where string sometimes goes quickly, we preferred a system like the bump-feed that gives some control over how much line is fed out and when.

Battery tests

We timed how long each trimmer will run under the same conditions, with the motor running constantly and cutting in dense grass and weeds.

As you can see from the charts, run time tracks pretty closely with the size of the battery and the amount of power the trimmer puts into cutting. The more work the tool does spinning the trimmer line, the shorter the battery life.

We also timed how long it takes to recharge the batteries with the included chargers; this will be a more important detail for some buyers than others.

The most surprising result is the Ryobi system; the short run-time on a high-capacity battery means it’s pumping a lot of watts through its motor. The fact that this trimmer also suffered poor cutting performance suggests an inefficiency in the drive shaft system that allows changing to other tool types. (It’s certainly the noisiest trimmer, and more noise is never an indicator of an efficient electric drive system.)

As noted previously, we’re using a nominal advertised power rating for the Stihl 2-cycle engine (0.9 kilowatts) that seems accurate. It has far more power available than the battery systems, and every fill of the 11.5 oz tank will give you about 34 minutes of run-time.

Who needs a string trimmer?

While a lawnmower is basically essential to the health of your lawn, string trimmers and leaf blowers are a bit more of a luxury. You’re keeping your grass at the right length, what’s left to do?

String trimmers are great with grass and weeds in all of the locations where a mower can’t help. Does your lawn have a corner where your mower won’t fit? Mow it with a string trimmer. A patch of weeds sprouting behind your trash cans? The string trimmer will take care of those, too. Want a clean edge between your grass and driveway? A good string trimmer will make edging easy.

Unless you own a home in a desert or polar region where nothing grows, a string trimmer can probably make your yard work easier.

Because the string that’s doing the cutting is flexible, you can cut right up to a tree or planter or post and not worry about damaging anything. The string will only cut through soft fibrous material like green plants, barely leaving a mark on big trees, concrete or metal. You should still be careful not to hit young trees and flower beds, of course, but it’s much easier to safely get close than it is with a mower.

String trimmers are even more popular on acreages and farms where hillsides and rocky patches make mowing impossible. Even in dry climates where grass landscaping and mowers are scarce, string trimmers can take care of the weeds that pop up.

If you’ve got a lawn that your mower covers perfectly and you don’t mind pulling your weeds by hand, you might not need a string trimmer. If you’ve got a bigger yard, though, there are almost certainly areas a string trimmer can help.

How to edge-trim your lawn

While a lawnmower trims grass that stands up in the air, it won’t do anything about the grass that lies flat or bends over and spreads onto your walkway or driveway. A trimmer can cut those leaves in a precise line along the edge of your lawn.

Edging your lawn with a string trimmer is quick and easy. First, turn the trimmer so it cuts up and down instead of parallel to the ground. Most have a rotating shaft or a multi-position handle so you don’t have to contort your upper body while holding the trigger in this position.

Walk the trimmer head down the edge of the lawn. Many trimmers have some sort of guide or another indicator that helps you track where the cutting string will hit. The rapidly spinning string will slice through any blades of grass that cross over onto your sidewalk and leave a clean edge. Typically the guide is set so that you dig a neat, narrow trench into the dirt along the edge; if you just want to cut the grass, you’ll have to lift the trimmer a few inches and hold it steady while you walk it along the line.

For Edging and Trenching: Black+Decker - LE750

This is an edger for people who want straight, clean, well-defined edges. It won’t mow in the corners like a string trimmer, but it will cut small trenches to run wires for backyard lighting projects.

See Price at AmazonSee Price at Home Depot

Edgers like the Black+Decker – LE750 are built for edging and trenching only. A tool like this uses a solid metal blade rather than a flexible string, and this has a few consequences. For one, the whole tool is far more intimidating, and it can’t cut weeds or mow the tricky spots around trees. The edger can do jobs like trenching that aren’t possible with a weed whacker, and the wheels and guides help you cut a very straight and even edge. Think of it as a circular saw for your sod.

Even for edging, we prefer string trimmers over dedicated edgers, because they’re easier to use on curved edges or uneven ground. It’s still tricky to follow a curve perfectly, but if you lose track with a string trimmer you won’t hear the terrifying sound of a metal blade scraping against concrete.

The best trimmers make it easy to switch between horizontal cutting and edging jobs, and our top pick, the Black+Decker, is no exception. You simply hold a button on the shaft and twist the cutting head to go from grass trimming to edging quickly and easily.

Types of trimmers

Gasoline

This is the type of string trimmer you’ve seen working beside roadways. Two-cycle gas engines have all the power you could ask for and can run six hours on a gallon of gasoline. They’re loud, though, and require extra maintenance. There’s also the trouble of mixing, storing and filling the oil-gasoline mix required by two-stroke engines.

We’re not trying to dissuade anyone who needs a gas trimmer from buying one: our test partners still rely on a few reliable and powerful gas trimmers that see all-day use and perform well. For an average-sized yard, though, gasoline is overkill.

Plug-in electric

We didn’t test any corded trimmers. They have a great price-power-weight ratio, but the cord is frustrating to work with. The specialized edger/trencher we tested is a plug-in model, and it has great power, but if you’re doing anything other than straight, slow lines close to your house the cord isn’t worth it.

Battery-powered electric

Cordless electric trimming is definitely the most pleasant experience of all. These trimmers are much quieter than a gasoline-powered trimmer, and you’re free to move quickly and efficiently around your yard.

The big downside to cordless electric is capacity: battery packs make a painful trade-off between power, run-time, and weight. Lithium-based battery technology is getting better every year, so the current generation of tools is widely regarded as a worthwhile compromise if you’re doing small jobs.

Battery life is up to around half an hour for most models, long enough to finish trimming around a house and small lawn without needing to stop for a charge.

Important features to consider

Power

In the world of cordless tools, manufacturers aren’t required to list specific power-draw specs on their tools the way they are with tools you plug into the wall. Makers do tell you about battery voltage, but that’s only half of the electrical story (volts x amps = watts).

Without a rating of the current drawn by the motor, we have to make guesses or extrapolations based on other numbers, like run-time and battery size. Gasoline engines do have a nominal watt power rating (since watts and horsepower are two different ways of measuring power, the rate work is done) and manufacturers like Stihl tell us what to expect from their engines.

We’ve made an estimate for the wattage used by each of the cordless tools. All of these numbers are for available power from the battery system and don’t take into account any waste from inefficiencies of the working machines. Our “cutting power” test scores give a better idea of what each machine can really do with that power.

A balance between power and noise

Many professionals rely on two-stroke gas trimmers for all-day landscaping work, and they might be the right tool for your job. That said, the noise of a two-stroke gasoline engine requires hearing protection and will likely disturb your family or neighbors if you like to do yard work in the morning. Some electric trimmers make a bit more noise than others, but none of them come even close to the loudness of a two-stroke engine.

Battery size

Batteries are typically sold with a capacity listed in amp-hours, literally the number of hours the battery will be able to send one ampere of electrical current to the motor. As noted above, these tools don’t list how many amps they draw from a battery, so we’ve done the dirty work with real-world tests of working time.

Cutting width and line size

The advantages of cutting a wider swath are both efficiency and power. For example, the difference between 13 inches and 15 inches might not seem like a lot, but if you’ve got large weedy patches to attack, the extra cutting with each pass can definitely add up over time.

The bigger advantage to a wider swath is in cutting power. A longer string means that, for the same engine speed, the tip of the cutting line will be moving faster, moving at (for our example) 16,000 feet per minute instead of only 14,000.

The difference between a 13-inch cutting head and a 15-inch head is about 15 percent in both the cutting area and the speed of the string, but there’s more. When you add the fact that a bigger head can take a line that has a 0.080” diameter instead of the skinny 0.065” string in a typical smaller machine, the extra mass makes for yet another 23 percent increase in the force that goes into chopping weeds. (Some big trimmers can load 0.095” or 0.1” line for even more power, and 0.095” is a typical diameter for commercial work where tough weeds are expected.)

Extra force means more electricity is needed from a battery pack, so you’ll see diminishing returns if you’re more concerned about run time than cutting a wide swath through dense weeds.

We’re pretty sure that this is the flaw in Ryobi’s design with the 40220: the motor just can’t draw enough current from a 40V battery to get the big 0.08” string going quickly enough. Our top pick from Black+Decker uses 0.065” string, but the slightly newer LST540 seem to have problems with its heavier string just like the Ryobi.

If you’re even considering running the trimmer for more than one battery charge (about half an hour) in a day, the extra width and power of a bigger trimmer with a high-voltage battery is probably worth it (and you might consider gas). If you’re mostly edging and you keep up with garden weeds so you never see half-inch stalks, then a 13-inch trimmer should do the job without extra weight or expense.

String feed system

There are a few ways to get more cutting line out when rocks, sticks, and concrete wear down or break the string:

Automatic feed: Popular on smaller trimmers, this feature is included on our top pick Black+Decker as well as the Greenworks trimmer.

This system tries to keep your line at just the right length by letting out a small amount (usually about ¼ inch) every time you stop and restart the trimmer. The line never gets too long, because a small blade chops off any excess line as it spins.

This is handy, but it can waste line if the mechanism is too generous, and can be frustrating to work with if the spool is stingy. (If you burn through a bunch of string cleaning up around a sharp-edged brick planter, for example.)

Some newer trimmers use a hybrid manual/automatic system that will pay out more line when you push a button while the trimmer is running, but this wasn’t available on the top-ranked trimmers we tested.

Manual feed: This feature lets you stop the machine, pick up the trimmer head and press a button to pull out more string. This takes time, but you can get very close to the maximum allowed length (determined by the length-trimming blade mounted on the guard) to reduce wasted line.

The trimmer from Greenworks is the only one we tested that has a manual-feed bypass for its automatic system.

Bump-feed: This lets you use a spring-loaded clutch system that will release more line when you “bump” the bottom of the trimmer head on the hard ground while it’s running. This is the system used on the 15-inch-width trimmers we tested, from Ryobi and Ego.

This takes some getting used to, but if you’re working around rocks, sticks, and concrete that quickly wear out your trimmer line, it’s a very fast way to get back to the job. Most commercial-grade trimmers use a system like this.

Fixed-line: This type of trimmer head is sometimes an option, but we didn’t pick any models with this style. Rather than a spool that feeds out line as it’s used up, a fixed-line head just holds one piece that starts out at exactly the right length and needs to be manually replaced when it wears down.

A shoulder strap

None of the models we tested came bundled with a strap, and we tested each of them without one, but if you’re going to be running a trimmer for more than ten minutes at a time you owe it to yourself to use a support system of some kind.

Essential Accessory: Arnold - Universal Trimmer Strap

The universal trimmer strap from Arnold is basic, but it’s a huge relief to shift the weight of the trimmer onto your core muscles.

See Price at Amazon

Aftermarket straps are plentiful and cheap; we tested the Arnold Universal Trimmer Strap. It works perfectly on all the models except our top pick: the bracket included with this strap won’t quite fasten around the thicker shaft on the Black+Decker tool. The strap itself can clip on various parts of the handle, though, and we didn’t have any problems using it; the Black+Decker is also a trimmer that’s light enough not to need a support strap as badly as the others do.

The shoulder strap attachment bracket should sit right at the balance point of the trimmer. After you adjust the length of the strap to get the trimmer at a perfect height, you can almost work one-handed.

There are more elaborate strap and harness systems available to help balance a heavy commercial trimmer. The trimmer will rub against your hip if you’re supporting it with a strap, so the heavy-duty harnesses include some kind of shield to fend off bruises and grass stains.

The bottom line

Trimming grass and weeds around your lawn is one more step in a mowing routine that can really make the difference between a lawn that’s merely cut and a lawn that looks carefully maintained.

Black+Decker’s – LST136W is a tool designed with home lawn care in mind, and it has just the right set of features and performance to excel in an urban environment. Striking a good balance in power, weight, cost, and battery capacity, this is a single-line trimmer that can keep up with your lawn-care needs.

Top Pick: Black+Decker - LST136W

At less than seven pounds and with enough battery capacity to get you through a weekly trimming job, this is a great tool for urban lawn-care.

See Price at Amazon

The post The Best String Trimmers appeared first on Your Best Digs.

Table of contents

• How we selected finalists to test
• Compare the best leaf blowers
• Blower types
• Do you need a vacuum for mulching?
• Important features to consider
• How we tested
• Best electric blower: Toro – 51621
• Best cordless blower: Dewalt – DCBL720P1
• Other finalists we tested
• The bottom line

How we selected finalists to test

We looked at top-rated blowers from publications like Consumer Reports, Popular Mechanics and GardeningProductsReview.com. We looked primarily at brands that are well-reviewed and easy to find and purchase. (Sorry, Stihl; a one-brand authorized dealer network might be a good place to buy tools for a landscaping company, but we like our internet comparison shopping.)

This lineup includes blowers with customer reviews that indicate more than just satisfactory performance and models regarded as quiet and efficient. We picked two models with vacuum and bagging options, both well-regarded for their capabilities there.

Gasoline-powered blowers have taken a real beating in the press this year, especially after a number of towns in New York and New Jersey decided to ban them during the summer months when they’re mostly used to clean up grass clippings, not to collect leaves. There is even a lobby organization dedicated to eliminating gas-powered landscaping tools, especially blowers.

Hand-held gas blowers didn’t make this review since, aside from those noise and pollution complaints, they’re both expensive and require more maintenance than many homeowners will want to deal with.

We did include a bigger backpack-style gas-powered blower to see what the extra power can do (and how much noise it really makes), and we also had a giant 9 HP walk-behind blower on hand for comparison.

Compare the best leaf blowers

Product	Price	Weight (lb)	Type	Power Score (out of 5)	Vacuum Function
1. Toro - 51621	$$	8.2	Electric, Corded	3.7	Yes
2. Dewalt - DCBL720P1	$$$$	7.4	Electric, Cordless	1.9	No
3. Echo - PB-580T	$$$$$$	23.4	Gas, Backpack	5.0	No
4. Worx - TriVac WG509	$$	9.4	Electric, Corded	2.2	Yes
5. Greenworks - 24012	$	4.6	Electric, Corded	2.1	No

Blower types

Plug-in electric

Most of the blowers we tested fall into this category. A cord does limit the distance you can move around your yard, but there’s a huge advantage: all the power you’re using is stored in the grid, so you don’t need to carry around a fuel tank or a heavy battery.

Plug-in blowers are very good at providing just the right amount of power for backyard leaf-blowing, and many also give you the option of vacuuming and mulching leaves for bagging or composting. (There are gas-powered leaf vacuums, but they’re becoming less and less common.)

This style is a compromise between clean, quiet operation and available power. If we had to pick just one blower for an urban backyard, it would definitely be plug-in.

Cordless, battery-powered electric

Battery-powered tools have been evolving steadily since Black & Decker created the first battery-powered drill using Nickel-Cadmium cells back in 1961. We’re now seeing widespread use of Lithium Ion cells, very similar to the battery in your laptop or cell phone, which don’t have nearly as many problems as older battery types.

Battery power is very convenient for short bursts of moderate power, like daily sweeping on a small yard and a driveway. If you need to work for longer than 20 minutes, though, the long charge time makes this a poor choice. You can buy additional battery packs to work longer, but the cost of a battery is a significant part of the tool’s price.

Gasoline

If being tethered to an electrical outlet just isn’t an option, gasoline-powered blowers are another way to go.

Professional landscapers use gas-powered blowers not only for freedom of movement, but also because gas motors put out far more power than a compact battery is capable of. We tested the Echo – PB-580T: a backpack-style blower with almost four times more working power than DeWalt’s 20V battery model.

Power for Pros: Echo - PB-580T

Echo’s two-stroke engines are powerful and reliable, and the backpack design makes it relatively easy to carry for long periods.

See Price at Amazon.com

The downsides to a two-stroke gas engine are also readily apparent. You need to mix special oil into the gasoline (or buy pre-mixed fuel), and the difference in noise levels is huge.

We measured 95 dBA of sound pressure at the distance of an operator’s ear, which means you should use ear plugs if you’re working with a blower like this for more tham an hour per day. It’s slightly less than a typical gas-powered chainsaw or string trimmer, though.

That said, It’s easy to see why gas-powered tools are still popular among professionals. If you keep fuel on hand in a small gas can, you can run your blower for six hours. We didn’t test a hand-held gas blower because the electric models were so highly rated, but gasoline still has a place on a property with lots of ground to cover.

Walk-behind blowers

This is a special category of leaf blower for people who need to clear a large area of pavement or concrete quickly. They’re mounted on wheels because they weigh about 150 pounds, but the amount of power on tap is pretty impressive.

Our test partners at the orchard use an older model of the Little Wonder Optimax blower for clearing driveways. With a 270 CC Honda engine attached directly to a giant fan, it’s rated to push 2260 cfm of air — more than five times what our top electric blower puts out.

That means you can clear a long driveway as quickly as you can push the blower, but it won’t do much for a big lawn with the on-road-only wheels. It also has a nasty habit of peeling up loose sod and destroying flower beds if you’re not careful where you point it. For clearing the driveway it works very well, unless you have a steep slope: these beasts are much easier to roll down a hill than they are to push back up.

Do you need a vacuum for mulching?

There’s a bit of controversy surrounding leaves, mulching and bagging.

Leaves and grass clippings are organic material that grows from your lawn, so there’s no question that removing them is also removing nitrogen and other plant nutrients from your lawn’s natural life-cycle.

What’s more, curbside pickup of bagged leaves might not even be available in your area. Leaves have to be composted, rather than going to a landfill, and it takes even more energy to transport all the leaves to a city composting site than it does for you to bag them.

That said, if you’ve got trees dropping all their leaves on your lot in October, you’ve got to do something with them (and blowing them into the street doesn’t count). If you just let the leaves accumulate, they’ll block the sunlight that your grass needs to store energy for winter — or worse, the leaves can get soggy and musty.

Many experts advocate mulching organic material back into your lawn with a mower that chops up leaves and spreads them as it cuts. (This is often called a “mulching mower,” but some people use that term to refer to a mower that collects mulch in a bag.)

Research like this study from Michigan State University definitely shows that mulching leaves back into the turf is good for your lawn. A lawn mower like our top pick from Honda will shred the leaves small enough that they filter down into your turf and nearly disappear.

Some homeowners strive to achieve the pristine green that you can only get by collecting leaves and clippings, and a blower with vacuum options is one tool that can help. Consumer Reports has published this guide that discusses strategies for using a leaf vacuum.

We definitely appreciated having the vacuum options on two of the blowers we tested, but we found them most useful for selective work. Collecting leaves around a pool or fountain, for example, is much easier when you can suck up the leaves instead of accidentally blowing them into the water.

Mulching leaves is a valuable part of lawn management, but we can’t say that there’s a leaf vacuum on the market that will make bagging an entire lawn worth of leaves easy.

Important features to consider

Cubic feet per minute is a measurement of overall volume of air the blower can move and should always be a relatively accurate measurement of overall power.

Miles per hour, on the other hand, is a measurement of the speed of the air that’s coming out of a blower. The speed will change, though, depending on how much room the air has to move: a small opening will yield higher speeds with more blasting power, while a wide nozzle might be much better at moving a wide swath.

There’s no definitive standard for where or how to measure airspeed, so we’ve done actual testing with weighted test objects and common tasks to give you an idea of how the blowers put their power to work.

Amps is a measurement of the amount of electricity that travels through a circuit each second. Corded electric tools will always tell you how many amps they pull, since you need to know that number in order to choose a big enough cord and avoid blowing your 15A circuit breakers.

Cordless tools, on the other hand, will rarely advertise how much energy they’re actually consuming, nearly always emphasizing the voltage and capacity (amp-hours or watt-hours) of the battery instead.

Watts measure the total amount of energy used, and we can even include a rating for gasoline engines. These numbers are provided by the manufacturers, and they’re only measuring the amount of energy that’s used up rather than the amount of actual work done, but it’s a handy reference for the size and power of a machine.

Mulch Ratio is how much space you’ll save if you mulch your leaves instead of raking them into a bag whole. Consumer Reports has found that the manufacturers’ listed ratios are exaggerated by four or five times, though, so we don’t put much stock in these numbers when picking machines. Toro lists “97% reduction to half-inch pieces,” while Worx claims an 18:1 reduction.

How we tested

Test 1: Force

If you need to move debris and gravel or to lift damp leaves out of your grass, then this is the chart that’s going to be most important.

We used a small weighted box to see how much brute force each blower has when you give it a big surface to blow against. The chart lists the distance our two-pound weight was pushed beside the manufacturer’s rating for total blower output in cubic feet per minute.

Test 2: Air speed

If you’re primarily blowing loose leaves to clear a big area, then this is most important chart to look at.

We measured how far each blower could throw a plastic pouch full of leaves with a quick-moving airstream. The chart includes the manufacturer’s assessment of air speed in miles-per-hour. The test object weighed four ounces, and the results line up with performance we observed sweeping leaves in our field tests.

For example, we see that the outlet tip on the Toro blower makes the air go faster than the giant tube on Echo’s blower, so the Toro was able to keep up when blowing leaves around even though it doesn’t move as much air overall.

The Worx blower, on the other hand, is only slightly better than the tiny Greenworks blower despite the narrow nozzle. It just doesn’t move enough air to be effective at clearing large areas.

Test 3: Noise levels

We measured the noise levels of each blower with our calibrated sound pressure level meter setup in three positions: at ear height, from 50 feet away and from 50 feet with the variable-speed control (if the blower has one) turned all the way down. Measurements are A-weighted (as most industry regulations require) and averaged over 30 seconds using Room EQ Wizard to ensure consistency.

For reference, some ordinances prohibit sound levels as low as 50 dBA before 7 AM in residential communities. 65 dBA at 50 feet is a common daytime maximum, so be careful using any blower around sensitive neighbours. More and more towns are beginning to ban loud leaf blowers, even electric blowers, so find out about local ordinances. Nonoise.org has a good collection of information from many American cities if you can’t find info on a local county or city website.

What about safety for you, the owner of the blower? Unless you’re blowing for more than a few hours every day, only the gas-powered blower is loud enough reach noise exposure levels that cause damage. Even the backpack blower isn’t as loud as a chainsaw or a weed wacker, but if you’re using any blower for a full day at work you should definitely be wearing hearing protection such as ear plugs.

Regarding safety, note that because sound pressure is measured on a logarithmic scale, every 3dB change represents a doubling in sound intensity. So, in terms of the health of your ears, a 6dB difference is four times more sound.

We tested an additional data point: if you just need to blow a few leaves off your walk early on a Saturday morning, most of these blowers do offer a speed control that will let you turn down the noise. The DeWalt cordless blower was really the only one that was quiet enough to consider using in a noise-sensitive situation, and it’s still not below the 50dB threshold that’s often used before 7 AM.

The way your neighbours perceive the sound of your lawn tools is not the same as measured results, of course. The decibel scale represents power in a logarithmic slope, but our brains respond in an even less linear way to changes in sound, and your family might not even notice a difference of 3dB, even if it is a lot more power. Your neighbor’s sleeping baby or dog will probably not care if you’re below a legally allowable noise level, but it’s good to know where you stand.

Test 4: Power comparisons

Compared to the capacity and voltage comparisons between battery-powered tools, comparisons of plug-in appliances might seem pretty boring. Bigger is better, right? There’s a catch, though, to drawing all that current from the wall plug: you need to be careful about using a big enough cable to get power to your tool.

The official National Electrical Code listing for cable conductor sizes involves some complex math and is more concerned with wiring inside your walls than lawn tools, so we rely on interpretations in the guide published by Home Depot.

16-gauge cords are common and will work well for our big plug-in blowers at 50 feet, but that’s not the end of the story. Wire heats up when you run electricity through it, and the longer the cable is, the more it will heat up.

If you need to buy a 100’ cord or tie two 50’ cords together, you should go up in size to 14-gauge wire. (Smaller number, bigger wire.) A 14-gauge extension cord is not as easy to find or inexpensive as a 16-gauge cord, but it’s well worth the cost when you consider what might happen if you melt a cord running too much current through it.

For battery and gas-powered blowers, we’ve provided the average running times we achieved after a season of leaf-blowing. Refilling a gas tank is quick compared to waiting on a battery charger, but don’t forget to keep some gas and two-cycle oil on hand in a gas can, or it could take you significantly longer to go re-supply at a gas station or hardware store.

The best electric leaf blower: Toro – 51621

Toro’s top-selling blower, the plug-in model 51621, comes with a kit that includes mulching and bagging accessories as well as a variety of different air-shaping nozzles. This is a versatile kit, but we picked it primarily for its raw power output.

In testing, we found that this blower could move bigger debris and throw leaves much farther than most of the other blowers, and it was better at loosening leaves out of long grass. In our distance test, el Toro threw our weighted test objects almost as far as the big backpack blower did.

Top Pick: Toro - 51621

This is a plug-in blower that nearly matched big backpack blowers for power. It's easy to handle, quieter than a gas-powered blower and comes complete with accessories for vacuuming and bagging leaves.

See Price at Amazon.com

The added accessories do make a difference, though. Being able to switch to vacuum-mode means you can do jobs that simple blowers can’t. The included oscillating tip makes it a little bit more efficient for sweeping off wide areas of concrete, though we didn’t notice much change when we were working on grass.

Toro’s blower isn’t perfect. To use it as a vacuum, you can exchange the blower tube for a bag, and the guard over the intake fan for a vacuum tube. The fit of the guard is snug, and changing the accessories could have been a little bit easier. That said, the recall on a close competitor, the Black+Decker’s BV5600, was over a very similar guard that was so loose it would fall off. We’ll take a bit of prying over lacerated fingers any day of the week.

Black+Decker’s BV5600 got a good review from The Wirecutter and Popular Mechanics and goes together as a kit in a similar way. Beyond the safety recall, Consumer Reports gave it a much lower score because it lacked power, so we stuck with the Toro.

If you’re planning to use this blower for long periods of time on the lowest power setting, the big speed controller does have a tricky habit of bumping to “off” if you jiggle it or even if you shake the blower.

It’s easy to ramp the speed up and down if you have a free hand, but it’s not like the trigger-control on the DeWalt cordless blower that lets you flick precise blasts of air. The speed control works if you need to turn things down for careful work around flower beds, but low-speed work is not its strong suit.

The cord lock integrated into Toro’s handle is not the best we’ve used, but we figured it out without needing to look it up in the manual and we never had a cord come unplugged.

With a 50-foot extension cord most people should have no trouble cleaning their lawns and patios with this plug-in blower, but if you need more length be sure to get 14-gauge extension cords: this blower draws 12 Amps, and that means typical 16 gauge cords will start getting too hot if you daisy-chain them out to 100 feet.

Another feature that solidified the Toro’s spot in first place is a blue hook that slips over the blower tube and gives you a way to wrap your extension cord neatly around the blower for storage. We prefer to hang our cords on a hook in the garage, but Toro is providing real options that the other manufacturers just don’t seem interested in.

Key takeaways:

• The Toro – 51621 blower/vacuum has far more power than the other blowers in its class, but it manages to be a little bit quieter than the other plug-in models, too.
• Plug-in power means you need a cord long enough to reach wherever you’re blowing, but you’ll never have to worry about batteries or fuel.
• Toro includes extra nozzles for specialized work and a well-designed vacuum function, making this a complete package.
• No cord included: if you need more than 50 feet of reach make sure to get a heavy-duty 14-gauge cord.

Best cordless leaf blower: Dewalt – DCBL720P1

A 20V lithium-ion battery can’t deliver as much power as a gas engine or a 120V extension cord, but the Dewalt – DCBL720P1 earned our respect with usable power and the freedom of lightweight cordless use.

If you’re lifting leaves that have been sitting on a lawn for a week and settling into the grass, the amount of power this blower offers might be disappointing, and the Toro blower can run circles around it doing tough jobs.

If you just want a blower for sweeping leaves off your sidewalk and into a pile, though, the cordless design means you can move quickly. If you’re concentrating on one spot a cord isn’t a big hindrance, but this blower excels at roaming up and down long driveways just as well as clearing hard-to-reach gutters or the corners behind your trash cans.

Effectively, this blower makes up for a lack of reach by making it easier to get close to the leaves you’re blowing. That also means it’s a bit easier to be careful about not blowing leaves across property lines or damaging flower beds, but it also means you’ll spend more time walking.

Runner Up: Dewalt - DCBL720P1

If you've struggled to find places to plug in your lawn tools, this battery-powered blower will save you from over-long extension cords. This is a simple tool, but it does its job well.

See Price at Amazon

The lower output also means this is also a very quiet blower, and the variable-speed trigger is by far the easiest to use of the bunch. (There’s also a locking thumb-lever that keeps the speed where you want it if you’re doing a bigger job.) It’s still as loud as a vacuum cleaner, so you’re not going to be some kind of lawn ninja who clears leaves unnoticed, but it’s a nice perk.

For spending an entire morning collecting leaves off your yard, this wouldn’t be our first choice, but it’s very convenient not having to worry about cords or gas cans when the leaves start falling and you just want to clear off your deck.

At the end of the day this didn’t make our top pick because an 18-minute runtime is just not going to be enough for some jobs, and stopping in the middle of a job to wait more than an hour for charging is just a pain. This is a worst-case runtime, though, with the trigger locked on full and no breaks. If you take full advantage of the smooth and easy trigger control you should be able to get five or ten more minutes out of a battery, but it’s difficult to translate that to real-world time walking around your yard without defining exactly how much force you need to push your leaves and how far you need to push them.

If you’ve already got one or two of DeWalt’s 20V Max batteries (or one of the new batteries for the Flex-Volt 20V/60V system) then the run-time limits might be less of a problem, but this still isn’t a tool for big jobs.

At the end of our testing period, we have mixed feelings about this blower. The price is especially hard to swallow, basically double what you pay for a good plug-in blower like our top pick. But this blower can go anywhere without worrying about cords, and it doesn’t have the inconvenience and weight of a gas-powered blower. This might make it sound like a niche tool, but we found ourselves reaching for the DeWalt first when doing frequent, easy jobs like blowing off walkways after mowing.

As is the case with most cordless tools, this blower is very handy and great to have around, and you might be surprised at how little you notice the power difference compared to the ease of working without a cord. (Just don’t forget to charge the battery when you’re done.)

Key takeaways:

• The Dewalt – DCBL720P1 isn’t the perfect tool for every job, but it has just the right amount of power for most leaf-blowing.
• The battery isn’t going to astound you with its capacity, but there’s enough working time for weekly yard chores.
• Remembering to charge the battery is a bit of a pain, but it’s still faster and easier to drop the battery in a charger after each use than to untangle a heavy extension cord or remember to fill a gas can.

Other finalists we tested

Echo – PB-580T

The PB-580T from Echo is a representative pick: this was a well-reviewed and economical choice from a wide field of two-cycle gas blowers. This is the kind of tool you’ll know well if you’re working professionally around yards and parks, but some homeowners with property backing onto parkland might consider it too.

The downsides, naturally, are many. Starting never took more than a few pulls if we followed the prime/choke/throttle/pull procedure carefully, but that’s still a lot of steps compared to the power-and-go simplicity of electric blowers. The run time was good and refuelling was pretty easy, but those are still factors you don’t have to worry about with our top pick.

Gas-powered blowers are also becoming increasingly less popular with neighbours and city councils, so think carefully about who might be affected by your leaf-blower choices.

Pre-mixed gas like TruFuel is a handy way to keep fuel on hand for occasional use, but it’s not cheap. The brand-name oil additive with handy measuring bottle makes it easy to add when you’re filling a gas can, and if you’re refilling that a few times per season it definitely pays off.

The noise that this machine makes is unmistakable. It rumbles, buzzes and chatters at idle like most two-stroke engines do, but it actually put out less noise energy (however distinctive it might be) when idling than the big electric blowers did at their lowest speeds.

Of course when you pull the trigger to spin the fan up this is a loud machine. You’d be wise to wear hearing protection like ear plugs when you’re doing big jobs, but it doesn’t put out the ear-splitting volume of something like a chainsaw.

There are other options if you have a yard too big for a cord: handheld gas blowers like the Hitachi – RB24EAP costs less than a backpack blower, but they don’t put out significantly more air than our electric top pick. There are also bigger lithium-ion cordless systems, like the 56V Power+ from Ego (out of stock when we purchased our testing group) that put out an impressive amount of air, but can’t run longer than about 20 minutes on a battery.

The backpack blower is a tool that makes no compromises: it goes where corded blowers and even the big walk-behind gas blowers just can’t go, but it can keep going for as long as you can keep topping off the fuel tank. It’s not a vacuum or mulcher, and it’s not lightweight or quiet, but if you need to clean a ¼-mile-uphill driveway it’s practically perfect.

Worx – Trivac WG509

There are things to like about the TriVac WG509 from Worx, but on the whole it’s just not competitive.

The only reason we might recommend this blower over the Toro is if you need to switch quickly and frequently between blowing and vacuuming leaves: Worx made this blower so you can leave the bag attached all the time, and switch the output between the bag and the blower tube with a simple flip of a lever.

As a blower, though, it’s just not great. The outlet nozzle is small and hides underneath the large vacuum tube, which makes it tricky to maneuver in tight spaces. It has more power than the cordless DeWalt blower or the little GreenWorks blower, but compared with the Toro it’s very underwhelming.

As a vacuum the shape and handle are well-designed, but for blowing we found the Toro’s pommel-grip handles made it easier to sweep and pile direct leaves. The Worx blower is a pound heavier, too, even without the bag attached.

For nearly the same price, the Toro electric blower is much more powerful, more versatile, and easier to use.

Greenworks – 24012

Greenworks makes a lot of inexpensive lawn tools, and the 24012 is pretty much what you’d expect. The best thing about it is definitely the price, but it deserves the high 4.5-star overall rating on Amazon since it does what it can within a budget.

In testing, this blower doesn’t move very much air. There’s enough to move leaves around, more than the cordless DeWalt and almost as much as the big Worx multi-function machine, but it’s not any easier to carry around or use than our top pick from Toro.

Greenworks didn’t provide any consideration for vacuuming, different blower patterns, variable speed or easy cord-wrapping. Even the on/off switch is about as basic as it could be.

The amount of noise it makes is the one thing that’s remarkable: with a small fan spinning quickly trying to move as much air as it can, this was the loudest electric blower we tested. It’s a high-pitched whine, too, definitely something your neighbours and family will notice.

We paid $30 for the Greenworks blower, and that does count for something; if you don’t already have a long extension cord, it’ll cost almost as much as this blower does. Note that the tiny motor does means it’ll safely run on a cheap 16-gauge extension cord all the way up to 100 feet.

The bottom line

Finding the very best leaf blower for your particular situation is sometimes a tricky exercise, even without factoring price or power. You can really only pick two of the following traits: Ease of use, run-time and freedom from cords.

For those whose primary concern is quickly clearing a driveway or patio, extra power might not be all that important. The 18-minute runtime of the Dewalt – DCBL720P1 isn’t its best feature, but it’s enough time to do the jobs this blower is best at.

Right now, it really is still worth the hassle of a power cord to gain the power and run-time of a blower like our top pick. The Toro – 51621 is a blower that will do everything you need a backyard blower or vacuum to do, if you have a long enough cord. If you’ve already got one of those for a plug-in lawn mower, the Toro is an easy pick, but for nearly everyone else we still think it’s a great machine and worth the hassle.

Top Pick: Toro - 51621

Toro’s top-seller has all the power and accessories you could want. Carrying a cord around and moving from outlet to outlet isn’t our favourite part of blowing leaves, but it’ll save you money and it means you never have to wait for a battery to charge.

See Price at Amazon.com

The post The Best Leaf Blowers appeared first on Your Best Digs.