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Spring brings rising temperatures and heavy showers, breathing life into trees, lawns, flowers, and plants. Naturally, green-fingered homeowners are eager to get outside and get their garden ready for a nice, long summer.

Before spring arrives, it’s a smart idea to start shopping for power tools that will make your lawn much easier to manage. The power tools you need will depend on your requirements. What trees, shrubs, and other plants are in your yard? Will you plant vegetables, flowers, or anything else in your garden? And be honest, how much ‘spring cleaning’ is needed? Let’s jump into this comprehensive list of outdoor power tools you should have in your garage before spring gets here.

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Although its primary purpose may be for quickly clearing out dead leaves in the fall, there are multiple practical uses for leaf blowers beyond blowing leaves. With the amount of power packed inside most leaf blowers, it can double as a portable dryer. You can use it to dry a freshly washed vehicle, wet towels and clothes after an outing to the beach or a pool, or patio furniture soaked through after a spring rain storm, if it needs drying.

In addition to its drying capabilities, a leaf blower is an excellent cleaning tool. Similar to how you can use compressed air to clean computer parts, you can use a leaf blower to clean your dirty garden tools, blow dust and other debris out of your garage or workshop, or clear out dust from filters in shop vacs, lawn mowers, chainsaws, and other applicable power tools.

The price you’ll pay for a good leaf blower varies greatly based on whether it’s corded or cordless, how powerful you need it to be, and whether it has any other built-in capabilities besides blowing air out. Corded electric models tend to range between $40 and $70, while most cordless, battery-powered models cost from $90 to $300. If you’re unsure where to start your search for a good leaf blower, check out our ranking of every major leaf blower brand.

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Most people with lawns will already have a mower in their garage. Whether this is a fancy riding mower or an inexpensive push mower, adding a weed eater to the mix can simplify the process of maintaining your lawn. Depending on where you live, this helpful outdoor power tool might go by the name of string trimmer or weed whacker instead of weed eater. Whatever you choose to call it, weed eaters help cut away grass and weeds in areas your mower can’t easily reach, like around tree trunks, fences, or tight corners.

When choosing a weed eater, the biggest deciding factors you’ll need to consider are whether you want an electric or a gas-powered model and whether you’d like a cordless or corded model. These decisions will largely be made based on how big your yard is, how much power you need to get the job done, and what your budget is, as these power tools can range from around $50 to well over $500. To help you find a good string trimmer for your needs, we’ve got you covered with a list of the best string trimmers you can buy right now, as well as a deep dive into every major string trimmer brand, ranked worst to best.

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Edgers share a visual likeness with string trimmers on the top half, but the similarities end there. Edgers cut vertically with a blade, whereas string trimmers cut horizontally with spinning string. While string trimmers are great for cutting down tall grass and weeds around trees, along landscape edging, and other hard-to-reach areas, they can’t create defined lines along garden beds and sidewalks like an edger can.

Because edgers have that fixed blade on the end and pack a lot more power than string trimmers, they’re much heavier. However, if you want your yard to look polished in spring, a weighty edger is an essential tool to add to your garage. Like most power tools, edgers come in corded and cordless options, gas-powered and electric models, and varying power levels. Depending on the edger’s specs, it may cost you anywhere from $50 to $400.

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A pressure washer is easily one of the most satisfying power tools you can use because it shows you results right away. And for spring, a notorious season to deep clean the inside and outside of your home, a pressure washer is just what you need. You can use a pressure washer to breathe new life into your driveway, sidewalk, exterior brick, pavers, outdoor furniture, and wooden decks or porches, though be sure to use a lower recommended pressure for the type of wood you’re cleaning.

Pressure washers come in many shapes and sizes, so make sure you research well before you buy. Corded pressure washers can be more affordable and lighter than gas-powered models, but they’re less powerful and you’ll be tethered to an outlet. Battery-powered options ditch the cord, which lets you move around freely, but are slightly heavier and pricier in exchange. Gas-powered pressure washers are generally the most expensive and heaviest, but they pack the most power. You can expect to pay anywhere from $100 to well over $1,000, depending on how your tool is powered, which major pressure washer brand you go with, and whether you opt for accessories. 

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With leaves gone from most trees at the end of winter, it’s easy to see exactly where a tree needs a good trim. To tackle this job, you’ll need a chainsaw and/or a pole saw in your garage before spring hits. Chainsaws are ideal for work on the ground, like chopping firewood or taking down an entire tree or large branches that are below your shoulders when you’re standing. For branches that are higher in the tree, or at least higher than your shoulders, a pole saw is the best tool for the job.

Whether you opt for a chainsaw or a pole saw, corded electric models are going to be your cheapest options at around $100 to $200. Sometimes you can find battery-powered, cordless models in this price range too, but more often, you’ll see them priced between $200 and $400. Gas-powered models are the most expensive, but they’re also the most powerful of the three options. To jump-start your search, we’ve compiled a ranking of every major chainsaw brand and every major pole saw brand.

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If you intend to plant more than a few flowers, vegetables, or fruits this spring, you might want to get a cultivator. Put simply, cultivators are designed to loosen up the top soil and make planting easier. This Ryobi One+ 18V Cordless Cultivator, for example, uses built-in steel tines to till soil up to four inches deep and between six and eight inches in width. A cordless, battery-powered option like Ryobi’s typically costs $200 to $300, while most gas-powered models start closer to the $300 mark and can go up to around $400.

For gardening in larger areas or prepping new areas of soil for planting, a tiller might be a smarter option. Tillers work similarly to cultivators, but they can dig deeper and cover a wider area. With a larger working area, tillers are bulkier, heavier, and pricier than cultivators. It’s worth noting there’s a “no till” gardening movement that’s becoming increasingly popular, which claims that if your soil isn’t super packed down or dry, it may not need to be tilled this intensely.

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Aerating your lawn is a simple way to keep your grass vibrant and healthy. In simple terms, using an aerator on your yard pokes holes that help oxygen, water, and fertilizer reach the grass roots. By poking holes and allowing your grass to breathe and get proper nutrients, you can ultimately prevent unattractive patches of thin or brown grass from popping up as easily.

There are plenty of manual aerator tools available, but opting for a power aerator will save you a ton of time and effort. On average, power aerators range from $150 to $500 and often come with the ability to function as a dethatcher. Aerators prevent thatch, or a “thin layer of dead and living grass roots,” but if your lawn already has some pretty bad sections of thatch, it’s wise to use a dethatcher tool before an aerator.

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Hedges and shrubs grow pretty fast, which can make them a pain to maintain, but they make a beautiful statement, whether you keep them a simple shape or transform them into a beautiful topiary. Manual hedge trimming shears give you greater control, which is why they’re better for creating topiaries, but compared to power hedge trimmers, they’re more tiresome to use for long periods or for large hedges.

Power hedge trimmers simply glide over the tops and sides of hedges to create polished lines in minutes, though it’s wise to go slow until you get the hang of using it to prevent mistakes. Gas-powered hedge trimmers are available, but they’re less common and more expensive than battery-powered and electric models. Gas models can reach prices of $500 or more, but both corded electric models and battery-powered cordless models tend to range between $75 and $200, no matter which major hedge trimmer brand you’re looking at.

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A shop vac is a very useful tool to have on hand in any season, but especially spring. Vacuum dead leaves out of your gutters, piles of dust and debris behind large equipment or storage shelves, and even the last few inches of water from a hot tub if it’s time for a deep clean.

Most shop vacs can blow as well as vacuum, opening up a few other helpful ways you can use your shop vac. You can use a shop vac’s blowing function to clear off decks and walkways, remove dust buildup on filters, dry off wet furniture, and quickly inflate pool toys and floating rafts. The average shop vac costs around $100, but it’s possible to find one from $40 to $400 or more, depending on optional accessories, overall capacity, and which major shop vac brand you choose.

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Whether you have a huge garden taking up your entire backyard or a small vegetable patch just to try your hand at gardening, you may want to look into getting a chemical sprayer. Using a chemical sprayer is an efficient way to treat all your plants at once with herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides to prevent unwanted plants, harmful insects, and fungal infections, respectively. It’s also a great way to deliver liquid fertilizers and micronutrients to all your plants.

For small gardens, a manual sprayer might be all you need. But if you have to make multiple passes to cover everything or you intend to plant a large garden this spring, it’s worth investing in a battery-powered chemical sprayer. These power chemical sprayers are pricier than manual options, with a typical price range between $75 and $200, but they deliver fertilizers, insecticides, and other liquids evenly, quickly, and without unnecessarily overusing the product inside.

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A battery-powered pruner may cost a lot more than a traditional, manual pruning tool, but it’ll save your hand quite a bit of pain in the long run. Depending on what exactly you’re pruning, manual pruners can take a lot of effort to operate. Meanwhile, battery-powered pruners operate with a simple button push, and each model will tell you exactly how large a diameter it can cut through with ease. Plus, the battery used in pruners can sometimes power a built-in LED light to make it easier to see where you need to cut in dim areas.

If you want to start shopping for a pruner, but you’re not sure where to start, check out our roundup of every major electric pruner brand, ranked worst to best. Some brands will sell an electric pruner without a battery to help bring down its price to around $80, while other brands sell a bundle with the tool, battery, and charger for anywhere from $150 to $200 and up.

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One of the most important power tools you should have in your garage — in spring and all the other seasons — is a drill. With traditional Philips and flat head bits, you can assemble furniture, hang curtains and pictures, and easily embark on countless DIY adventures. Buy some cleaning attachments for your drill to transform it into a powerful scrubbing machine, or pair your drill with an auger drill bit to make digging holes for gardening loads easier.

We love this 1.6 x 16.5-inch auger drill bit, an ideal Amazon gadget under $10 for gardeners. It’s made with heavy-duty steel and coated with a corrosion- and rust-resistant finish, and also available in a set of five planting drill bits priced at $50. This mix of auger drill bit sizes makes it easy to customize the depth and width of the hole for whatever vegetable, fruit, or flower you’re planting. Whichever option you choose, the bits are designed to work with drills that have a ⅜-inch chuck or larger, which includes most 18V cordless drills from major brands.