Gardening tools are of different types, with each serving a specific function.
These include pruning shears, gloves, garden forks, loppers, spades, hand trowel, hoe, rake, watering wand, garden hose, wheelbarrow, and watering can.
For lawn care, machines like edgers or weed eaters are used.
Of these many tools, we’re most interested in discussing edgers and weed eaters, also called string trimmers.
Here, a comparison between the two is made.
If you’re thinking about finding the perfect tool for tending your garden grass, you’ll need to get one of these; edgers or string trimmers.
Comparing Lawn Edgers and Weed Eaters
As expected, all garden tools are designed to serve different needs. For lawn edgers, the name alone gives an idea of what they’re used for.
These are used for defining the edges of lawns. Lawn edgers are helpful, especially around sidewalks, pathways, driveways, and garden beds.
Edgers will come in handy for edging lawn jobs to stand out as they give desired results. Weed eaters, on the other hand, go by several names.
Such include string trimmers, line trimmers, and weed whackers. It’s another essential gardening tool that helps achieve desired results when cutting grasses.
Here, grasses around or near obstacles are effectively cut using string trimmers. Examples of barriers to using string trimmers include trees, pillars, walkways, furniture, and houses.
To better understand what each of these tools is about, we’ll need to discuss each separately.
Knowing the Differences
Your decision to get a more suitable garden tool requires detailed information about how each works.
Often, people confuse edgers with string trimmers as they’re assumed to perform the same function. However, that isn’t entirely true, as you’ll soon find out.
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Lawn Edgers
When taking care of lawns, there’s a need to define or make a clean separation between two areas.
The most common areas to use lawn edgers are garden beds, driveways, pathways, and driveways. With the help of this tool, you get a distinct separation of grasses from concrete or other surfaces.
You’ll have to choose between manual and motorized lawn edgers when making your pick. As the name suggests, manual edgers are operated manually.
While they’ll get the job done, there are limitations when there’s a lot of work. In other words, manual edgers aren’t as fast as motorized ones.
On the other hand, motorized lawn edgers are designed to be more efficient. Due to their design, you can complete a ton of work quickly.
In terms of cost, motorized lawn edgers tend to be more expensive than manual edgers.
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Weed Eater
This gardening tool is widely known as a weed eater due to the popularity of a generic brand that covers all kinds of tools ranging from mowers, blowers, edgers, and hedge trimmers.
As mentioned earlier, more proper names will include string trimmers, line trimmers, or weed whackers.
You’ll need a string trimmer tool if your goal is to cut grasses around obstacles like trees, pillars, houses, walkways, and furniture, amongst others.
It excellently serves this purpose, including cutting grass at the edges. The design of this tool consists of a long shave, straight or curved.
At the top end of the shaft is a handle, while at the other, there’s an attachment for a spinning line. This is made of rugged, durable material.
It’s rotated at top speed to cut through grasses. Unlike edgers, string trimmers won’t give you the finely manicured lawn edge.
String trimmers come in different variants in terms of energy source used. The most common types you’d find include the electric-powered and gas-powered variants.
Differences Between Edgers and String Trimmers
If you’ve missed the details provided on the uniqueness of each gardening tool, this section provides a summary of what these differences are.
First off, one of the ways edgers differ from string trimmers is what constitutes the cutting part or portion of the tools.
Edgers come with a blade that cuts through the grass, while string trimmers have a flexible line that cuts through the grass when spun at high speed.
Also, each piece of equipment is used for a different purpose. For edgers, these are ideal for creating nicely cut edges between different sections.
String trimmers, on the other hand, are designed to cut grasses in hard-to-reach areas of your garden and around obstacles. This is something you can’t do effectively using an edger.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Edgers Vs. String Trimmers
For each instrument, there are specific uses you can use for.
The importance of these uses can be measured in terms of advantages and disadvantages. With such, you can determine what will best serve your needs.
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Edger Pros & Cons
With edgers, you can get all kinds of benefits, ranging from the clean separation of lawn foliage and paving.
The results obtained are also aesthetically pleasing due to the neatness of the job. What more? You get to minimize weed invasion when using an edger.
Different variants include manual & motorized options.
Regarding the disadvantages, the manual variants tend to be much slower compared to motorized versions. This would be unsuitable for larger yards as the job will take longer than necessary.
Motorized edgers tend to be more expensive than manual types.
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String Trimmer Pros & Cons
String trimmers also have their pros and cons. Regarding the benefits, you have many design options, including cordless types.
String trimmers can be used alongside lawnmowers for a perfect job. They’re lightweight and compact in design, thus helping with maneuverability.
One of the key benefits of using a string trimmer is its ability to get into hard-to-reach areas or spots and obstacles.
The cons of using string trimmers include the need to recharge (for cordless electric trimmers) frequently. What more? Gas trimmer variants can be noisy and emit harmful gases.
This is a picture of how these garden tools compare with each other. This distinction is necessary to help you choose the right tool for your gardening needs.
For the most part, you’ll need both as they perform different functions.