The Best Hedge Trimmers You Can Buy (2024)

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Everybody loves neatly trimmed shrubbery. But the job of trimming? Not so much. To get those bushes from shaggy to sheared as quickly and as easily as possible, you need a tool uniquely designed for speed, mobility, and power. There’s only one that fits the bill: the battery-powered hedge trimmer.

A cordless hedge trimmer is relatively lightweight and arguably easier to use than one with a roaring gas engine, hot muffler and cord that can get tangled. It's powered by small-but-mighty electric motor that drives a reciprocating blade and its drivetrain. And it conveniently takes the same battery that you would use in a cordless drill or a string trimmer.

Read on for our evaluations and recommendations of the best hedge trimmers, along with features to consider to help you select a hedge trimmer to produce the best looking shrubs in your neighborhood.

What To Consider

If all you have are a handful of yews to shape, even a light-duty and inexpensive hedge trimmer will be adequate. For tall and long hedges, you’re going to need a tool that’s up to the job, something close to being pro-duty. Larger, more expensive, and more powerful trimmers have a physically larger motor, a heftier drive mechanism, and a long cutting bar. Generally speaking, these are trimmers with a larger voltage battery and motor (36 volts and higher). The large-voltage motor is able to withstand the rigors of long trimming sessions and cutting thick branches. Generally speaking, heavy-duty models also have better blades and deliver a neater cut.

The tradeoff, however, when you step up to a heavy-duty, long-bar trimmer is anywhere from a pound to two pounds of increased weight. That may not sound like much, but you can definitely feel it on a hot day, particularly if you’re kneeling down or bending. Unless you’re trimming a wide hedge with access only from one side, use a trimmer with a bar that’s 22 to 24 inches long. For wide or very tall bushes, use a trimmer with a bar 26 inches and longer. Note, again, that increased bar length adds to trimmer weight and to the cantilever effect produced when you trim with your arms extended.

There are other features to look for, of course, like a spacious handle opening if you wear work gloves while you trim. Or a hedge-sweep bar (a fin that brushes fallen trimmings off the top of the shrub as you work). This is particularly useful if you have large, flat-topped hedges to trim, since the trimmings fall over and have a tendency to get stuck in the bush unless you move them out of the way.

How We Tested and Selected

We trimmed hedges and bushes in a variety of locations in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. One of our test hedges was 8 feet tall, 6 feet wide, and 60 feet long. We produced enough trimmings from that one hedge to fill the bed of a pickup. From there, we went on to shape yews, various evergreens, and boxwoods and cut back vine-tangled shrubs in a variety of locations. In the course of all that work, we also looked at whether the trimmers were well balanced and comfortable to use, whether we could easily insert their batteries, and how responsive the triggers were. But features that provide comfort and ease of use, while commendable, don’t mean much when compared to the power and cleanliness of the cut, because the plant has to heal after being shaped. After all, that’s the point of shaping and trimming shrubbery. Each trimmer turned in a credible performance, but they fill their respective niches.