The Black & Decker Cordless Electric Lawncare Center is a Gas Without the Gas

Finding a tool that offers convenience always fills me with a winner feeling. Finding one at a great price has me walking on water. Finding one that actually does more than I originally intended has me floating on cloud nine. Finding one that fits all three billings… well, let's just say I'm a lot of fun to be around when I manage that trifecta. You can imagine I was party central when I stumbled across the perfect electric edger and lawn care set.

I should actually open with the fact that I love gardening and landscape design. It is my summertime Zen. Nothing soothes my soul as much as digging in the dirt, planting, trimming the hedges, tinkering with the design and layout of my garden pond and mowing and edging the lawn. About the only thing that ever turns those activities into chores is a bad tool (or insufficient quantities of beer).

For years I did my yard work relying on gas-powered tools. My lawn mower is gas powered, my string trimmer is gas-powered and so is my edger. My frustration stems from the fact that when I want to get to work I don't want to have to worry about making a run to the gas station so I can top off my lawn care equipment. All too often I'd find I had to suffer that interruption, though, and it drove me nuts.

At one time I tried a friend's electric edger to put the finishing touches around the edges of my lawn and found there was something I both loved and hated about it. I loved how light it was without a tank of gas strapped to it. I hated trying to manage the electrical cord I was dragging through my wife's prized flower garden. Ultimately, the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze.

This year, though, things are going to be different. Every year for my birthday and Christmas I get a deck of gift cards. Invariably these are either to REI or to Home Depot. They usually sit idle on my desk until spring, but this year I took a batch of those cards with me on what was meant to be a quick hardware run for some plumbing items. Of course, I did the usual guy thing and found myself browsing the store when I stumbled across a nifty little package by Black & Decker. This Cordless Electric Lawncare Center kit included three great items in one, a string trimmer, a hedge trimmer and a blower.

Not one to make impulsive buys, I ran home and read some reviews (linked in this hub) before deciding I'd go ahead with the purchase. I found two things that fired me up about this kit – all three items were cordless and the string trimmer converts into an electric edger! Yay!

The weather being what it is (that's a picture of one of the tiki torches in my back yard from a week ago), I haven't had the chance to get out there and really use the items in the kit except for the electric leaf blower which is actually billed as an electric broom. It isn't powerful enough for heavy leaf blowing but does a great job sweeping up the sawdust in my wood shop. What I'm really looking forward to using is the NST2018 Grass Hog Cordless String Trimmer which, as already mentioned, converts into an electric edger.

Ok, I lied… I did actually buzz around pointlessly in my garage like a dweeb with this thing so I can give you some insight into why it rocks. The Grass Hog Cordless String Trimmer comes with a nice and powerful 18-volt battery. It has a telescoping shaft which means I don't have to worry about an aching back from using a too-short piece of equipment. There's also none of that annoying bumping to adjust the string length. This baby does it all for you automatically!

In retrospect, I would probably have been satisfied only buying the Grass Hog string trimmer. The blower isn't really powerful enough for me to do much more than keep my garage and driveway free of light debris and I already have the perfect cordless device for that (a broom). But I have a feeling I'll be just as fired up about the cordless hedge trimmer when I get a chance to use it this year. My old model (also Black & Decker but requiring a cord) did a great job but I'm really looking forward to not having to drag around and clean up two extension cords this summer.

If you're in the market for an electric string trimmer or an electric edger, DEFINITELY pick up the Grass Hog. And if you're tired of cords or trips to the gas station, pick up the whole darn Black & DeckerLawncareCenter set!