Petrol or cordless? Choosing the right garden tools for a stress-free summer.

Summer arrives with longer days, greener lawns and plants that suddenly seem to grow twice as fast. It’s the season when gardens look their best, but also when they need the most attention. And while enthusiasm helps, the tools you choose make all the difference in how enjoyable (or exhausting) your garden work becomes.

One question many homeowners ask is whether they should stick with petrol-powered tools or switch to the newer breed of cordless electric tools. Both have their place and the real trick is matching the right tool to the right type of garden. Petrol tools remain the go-to option when you need power, long run times and the freedom to tackle tough jobs without worrying about battery life.

If your lawn grows thick after rain, if you’ve got a big garden, if you’ve got patches of wild grass along the fence or if you simply prefer the reassurance of a powerful engine that you can keep running for hours with a little tank of fuel, petrol power is often the simpler choice.

The perfect pairing for this type of work is a petrol mower for the main cut and a petrol brushcutter for everything the mower can’t reach. The mower handles the bulk of the grass, while the brushcutter cleans up the edges, trims around rocks or poles and takes care of uneven ground or longer growth.

The Hyper Tough 127 cc Petrol Lawnmower is a great value option for bigger spaces, giving you a powerful but economical 4-stroke engine and a generous 400 mm cutting path that makes quick work of longer lawns. Match it with either the Hyper Tough 43 cc Petrol Brushcutter or the more heavy-duty 52 cc Petrol Brushcutter and you have a solid setup for medium to large gardens. And if your summer chores include clearing branches or trimming back thick growth, the Hyper Tough 45 cc Petrol Chainsaw with 457.2 mm bar adds even more muscle to your toolkit for the tougher clean-up tasks.

But not every garden needs petrol power. For smaller spaces, especially in estates or suburban areas where noise matters, cordless tools are becoming the go-to solution. They’re clean, quiet, lightweight and incredibly easy to use. Thanks to modern battery technology they still deliver more than enough cutting power for everyday garden maintenance.

For lawn care, the Hyper Tough 20 V Cordless Lawnmower is ideal for compact and small-to-medium gardens. Paired with the Hyper Tough 20 V Cordless Grass Trimmer, you can handle mowing, edging and tidying without fumes, cables or the weight of a petrol machine. And if your lawn is really small, you may find that the trimmer alone can manage the entire job comfortably.

Cordless tools also excel in the rest of the garden. Trimming shrubs? The Hyper Tough Cordless Shear and Shrub Cutter makes light work of small hedges and shaping tasks, while the Hyper Tough 20 V Cordless Hedge Trimmer takes care of larger hedge lines easily and comfortably. For branches and seasonal pruning, the range includes both the Hyper Tough 20 V Cordless Pruning Saw and the 20 V Cordless Branch Cutter, perfect for fruit trees, overgrown bushes or regular tidy-ups where a petrol chainsaw would feel like overkill. If you prefer a chainsaw but want the convenience of cordless, the Hyper Tough 20 V Cordless Chainsaw gives you a quieter, more agile option for light to medium branch work, without sacrificing cutting performance.

Whether you prefer petrol or cordless comes down to your garden size, how often you work and what kind of jobs you tackle. Petrol is unbeatable for raw power and long sessions. Cordless is unbeatable for convenience, quiet operation and easy, regular maintenance. For many homeowners, a mix of both ends up being the perfect balance – petrol for the heavy lifting, cordless for everything else that keeps your garden looking its best through summer.

The Hyper Tough range is now stocked by Builders, Game and Makro both online and at the store closest to you. All the tools are backed by a 12-month guarantee, while the range of 20 V power tools share the battery platform to save you money and prove more convenient.