Clean Up Your Sidewalks and Garden Beds With These Lawn Edgers for Homeowners (2024)

We’ve recommended Echo’s products for decades. This is a dedicated stick edger that’s well priced with enough engine for topsoil and typical cool-season grass. (For southern grass species, clay soil, or soil with small stones, you may need the company’s PE-2620 with a 25.4-cc engine).

The 21.2-cc engine that powers this machine takes a professional-grade 50:1 gas-oil mix, and the starting system has a spring-assist mechanism to make starting as easy as possible. We’ve tried other Echo products with the i30 starter and they are, indeed, very easy to start.

Key Specs

There aren’t many cordless options in edgers because it takes so much torque to do this job. That’s why Greenworks equipped this edger with an 80-volt brushless motor and a variable-speed trigger, designed for maximum torque only when you need it.

You can give the motor full power for deep cuts or cutting through clay soil, or back off the trigger for light cuts, such as refreshing the edge after weekly mowing. You’ll need to supply your own battery though, so this would be ideal for folks who already have a Greenworks tool collection.

Key Specs

Edging, especially at full depth, takes lots of torque. That’s why the Worx is powered by a powerful motor—the same kind of current that a mid-duty circular saw draws.

But the Worx has more than just power going for it. Its depth adjustment is simple and tool-free: Flip the latch on the side open and move the wheel and mounting bracket to the desired depth, then flip the lever shut.

Another feature we find intriguing is the machine’s cut line indicator, a drop-down fin that rides in the trench you’re cutting, steadying the machine and making mis-cuts a lot less likely.

Key Specs

This is the ultimate high-torque edging solution. The McLane lawn edger is U.S.-built and solidly constructed, weighing about the same as a small-engine lawnmower. It has a thick-bar stock frame, ball-bearing wheels, and a ball-bearing cutter head that tilts, allowing you to edge at an angle (horizontally or vertically).

The spacer between the front wheels makes this even more versatile than your standard edger. Leave the spacer in place for making straight runs, or remove the spacer and slide the wheels together and reinstall the spacer on the outside for edging curves with a tight radius.

The curb-riding feature lets you set the front wheels together so they ride along the curb while the blade cuts the notch between the curb and the grass. (There's definitely a learning curve with this maneuver, so be patient).

Unlike many gas-engine edgers for which the blade turns automatically when the engine is started, the McLane is equipped with a handle-operated clutch mechanism that allows you to disengage the blade until you’re ready to make cuts.

Key Specs

We’ve tested a variety of Earthquake machines over the years, and they deliver on the brand’s promise of no-frills power. While we haven’t tested this particular Earthquake model, after reviewing its specifications, it looks in line with the low-cost power-equipment that’s made the brand so popular among consumers.

In terms of layout and configuration, it’s much like the McLane above, complete with a clutch-activated blade. It’s got an engine appropriate for this class of equipment, a multi-angle cutter head, and an odd (though robust) debris catcher made from short chain links.

If your taste in outdoor power equipment tends to be old-school simplicity, give this edger some serious consideration.

Key Specs

We like the product development we’ve been seeing with Hart power tools and that includes this 40-volt trimmer, available at Walmart. Hart is a brand of TTI, the parent company of Milwaukee and Ryobi, so this level of product development comes as no surprise.

We gave the string trimmer a good, sturdy workout in grass and weeds and found that its power, lack of vibration, and the reliability of its bump feed were all commendable. Then we removed the string trimmer attachment and slipped on the 8-inch vertical wheel edger and used it to form the edge on a garden path and along some flower beds. That’s far more rugged work than we had a right to expect from the tool (it doesn’t have quite enough torque to keep the edger head from getting clogged with dirt), but the fact that we could do such demanding edge work was pretty remarkable.

You should be aware that this trimmer doesn't have string heads that are easy to lock and unlock when they are new. It takes several lock-unlock cycles. The harder you work the trimmer, the more difficult it will be to unlock the spool head. Our testing is severe, however, and we found that after a thorough thrashing, we could not unlock the string head.

Bottom line: lock and unlock the string head several times when the trimmer is brand new to get a feel for it and to wear in the head’s locking mechanism. Thereafter, take it easy. This is a good trimmer, but it’s not commercial grade equipment.

Key Specs

This manual edger from Ames is an affordable to alternative to the heavy-duty machines on our list, especially if you don’t have a ton of edging to do. Although it requires a decent amount of physical effort, the simple design allows you to maintain maximum control during use, unlike automatic options that can be a challenge to keep on track.

Plus, since it takes up about the same amount of space as a rack or hoe, you shouldn’t have any trouble hanging it or storing it when the job’s finished. We’re also big fans of the convenient footplate, which lets you sink the blade into soil with ease.

Key Specs

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