Though I warned my other half when we bought a house with a bit of a garden that it would be a lot of work and that I did not intend to do it, I was still left holding the baby. Hubby went into a frenzy of buying every available gadget for the job, but just never had the time to use it.
We got a gardener in for maintainance to solve the bone of contention, but not for long. By that time we had hedges to trim on three sides. Climbing jasmine,junipers, and firethorn.
Not only was the task of trimming exhausting, but at five foot nothing my reach was limited. Left no choice, sweating buckets, hubby had to tend to the higher reaches.
Our neighbour kindly offered a loan of his electric trimmer.. I could handle it, but still could not reach high enough. The blade was something like 40 or 50 centimeters long.
It was strong enough for the jasmine but choked on the others.
Hubby went looking for a longer one and was told that electric ones were not strong enough to be longer.
He was sold a motorised one ( Japanese, but the brand is immaterial since our imports are probably not the same as in the UK) which was 80 centimeters long.
It runs on motor scooter fuel (half oil, half petrol) makes a hell of a lot of noise for one quarter of a horse power, and, joy oh joy, is absolutely impossible for me to handle.
Hubby is doing very well with it as it chews though anything, and he is very proud of his achievement and only contribution to the garden.
This year we got in a gardener to do some pruning and trimming of trees and bushes which went wild and invaded space not meant for them. Imagine our surprise when the gardener pitched up with a hedge cutter about 50% larger than ours and used it for the pruning job. He was through in no time at all.
As a conclusion to this family tale I would say this:
To be effective a hedge trimmer has to be large and robust.
Unless she is built like a Valkyrie, this is no tool for the little woman, much
as I believe and practice equality of the sexes.