If you're standing in B&Q on a Saturday in March looking at lawn mowers, here's the thing nobody on the shop floor will tell you straight: the individual product hardly matters. The decision that does matter is which battery ecosystem you're about to marry. Five years from now, you'll have a hedge trimmer, a strimmer, possibly a leaf blower, and the only question that ever comes up is whether they all share the same battery pack. Get that wrong and you'll be buying a second charger for life.
Cordless garden equipment has genuinely matured since 2020. Petrol used to rule everything beyond a postage-stamp lawn; now it really only earns its place in very large gardens or professional use. For UK households with gardens up to 600m² — which covers most suburban properties — cordless is sufficient.
The ecosystem question, settled first
There are three serious cordless garden ecosystems worth your attention.
Bosch DIY 18V (the green range) covers mower, hedge trimmer, strimmer, leaf blower, secateurs. The 18V batteries are shared across Bosch's DIY power tools too. Best for mid-size gardens — say up to 500m² — and particularly good if you already own Bosch DIY drills or sanders.
EGO 56V is the premium cordless tier. Near-petrol power in cordless form, longer battery life, more expensive upfront. The right answer for gardens of 400-1,000m² where Bosch's 18V tools start running out of puff.
Ryobi ONE+ 18V is the value play. Garden tools and DIY power tools share the same battery. Build quality below Bosch but adequate for occasional use, and the breadth of tools on the ONE+ system is genuinely the strongest argument here.
For very large gardens or professional landscaping work, cordless still hasn't fully displaced petrol. Stihl petrol kit remains relevant if you're doing four or more hours of continuous work or running a small landscaping business.
Tool by tool
The mower. For 200-600m² gardens, the Bosch CityMower 18V at £200-£280 with battery does the job for most lawns. For larger gardens, the EGO LM1701E 56V at £350-£450 has the runtime and power you actually need. Avoid petrol mowers under £400 — quality is usually low — and avoid robot mowers if your lawn has irregular edges, because they genuinely struggle.
Hedge trimmer. Bosch UniversalHedgeCut 18V at £70-£100 handles most domestic hedges. If you're cutting long runs of mature hedge or thick growth, the Stihl HSA-series at £200-£350 is genuinely better — more torque, less stalling.
Strimmer / line trimmer. Bosch EasyGrassCut 18V at £60-£90 covers most gardens.
Leaf blower. Bosch UniversalGardenTidy at £60-£90 — combination blower, vacuum and mulcher. More useful than a dedicated blower for most UK gardens, where leaves have to go somewhere rather than just being shifted.
Pressure washer. Different category, and stay corded. The Karcher K3 or K4 corded at £150-£250 is the right tool for serious cleaning. Cordless pressure washers exist but lack the power for tough jobs — patio moss, decking — that pressure washers actually get bought for.
The battery reality nobody mentions
Here's what actually matters once you've bought the tool:
- A 2.0Ah battery gives you 25-40 minutes of mowing. Fine for tiny gardens, frustrating for anything bigger.
- A 4.0Ah battery gets you 50-80 minutes. Covers most UK gardens in a single charge.
- A 6.0Ah-plus battery gets you 90+ minutes. Needed for genuinely large gardens.
Then: buy a second battery. £40-£100 depending on system. Having one charging while the other is in use changes the entire experience of using cordless garden tools, and it's often a more impactful spend than upgrading the tool itself.
Where cordless still loses
Three situations where cordless isn't the right call:
- Very large gardens above 1,000m² — petrol still has the edge on continuous runtime
- Professional landscaping — higher-end Stihl or Husqvarna petrol, or commercial cordless
- Wet conditions — most cordless tools have IP ratings limiting wet use; petrol generally tolerates British weather more cheerfully
The honest version of the buying advice
UK households with gardens up to ~500m²: commit to Bosch 18V. Buy the mower, hedge trimmer, strimmer and leaf blower over two or three years as you actually need each one. Total kit comes in around £400-£600 across multiple tools, which is reasonable for fifteen years of use.
500-1,000m² gardens: commit to EGO 56V. Premium cordless that has the runtime and power for the space.
Large gardens, allotments, professional needs: Stihl petrol still earns its keep.
Tiny gardens under 100m²: a manual push-reel mower and a pair of manual hedge shears are genuinely sufficient at £80-£120 total. Skip the cordless ecosystem entirely.
What I'd swerve: cheap £60-£100 corded electric mowers with unreliable cables; subscribing to robot mowers for irregular gardens (they spend half their life stuck); and over-buying petrol kit for jobs you do four times a year.
Affiliate disclosure: Morningfold has affiliate partnerships with Bosch, EGO, Ryobi, and Stihl. See editorial standards.