Peter Morrell treats his overgrown backyard to the Gtech cordless tools treatment and is delighted with the dramatic effect

Gardening has never been one of my strong suits which doesn’t sit well with the fact that I have a large garden in South London with some trees dating back to 1895, so it was beginning to look quite neglected. Recently my neighbour, a sagacious retired doctor who keeps his even larger garden immaculate, advised ‘Get the right tools’

So I took a look around and discovered that Gtech, who make the highly acclaimed cordless AirRam vacuum cleaner, are now selling a range of cordless garden tools. As I am please with the AirRam they looked like the ideal choice.

My pet gardening hate is mowing the lawn, it is always two hours of sweat and toil with my old electric hover mower. So I was keen to try Gtech’s Falcon, their new cordless lawnmower. It’s a smart machine with a gear stick to easily adjust the cutting height. At the start of the season you can set it to an 8cm cut and then move down during the summer in 1cm increments to a 3cm cut.

After charging the lithium-ion battery I was away, there was no trip to the cellar to find a circuit breaker and extension cable. To my utter amazement fifteen minutes later I had finished and had to sit down and think why it had been so quick and simple.

Firstly the Falcon is on large wheels making it easy to push and it feels solid and powerful. Secondly it’s got a copious 40 litre capacity grass cutting bin with a neat device to indicate when it’s full, so there are less treks down the garden to the compost heap.

The wide 430mm (c. 18 inches) cutting blade not only enables you to cut right to the edge of the flower beds but means less trips up and down the lawn. However the real time-saver is the lack of power cord, with my old mower I had to move the wire across at each turn but with the Falcon you just keep on going. If you are currently using a petrol mower you will notice a big difference in the noise level, there is no frustrating string pulling to start, no drive to the garage for fuel and no exhaust fumes.

Next it was time to trim the shrubs and trees. For this I used the Gtech cordless hedge trimmer. Again this is run with a lithium-ion battery and the trimmer is highly versatile. The head is adjustable through 135 degrees and the handle has a long reach giving you the opportunity of cutting at low level without bending and high hedges ladder free. Although lightweight it is very powerful and will whip through woody stems with ease, for thicker branches there is an optional saw cutter. My 100 year old yew tree got the shock of its life as it became a pom-pom, the straggly deutzia was suddenly tamed and the box plants regained their spherical shape. I was starting to get hedge trimming fever, the ivy that had taken over the pergola was attacked and the thorny pyracantha which is painful to prune looked neat and cared for.

There was one final task, to smarten up the edges and get rid of the weeds on the patio. This was a job for the Gtech cordless grass trimmer. The lithium-ion battery gives you 30+ minutes of use, more than enough for a tidy up. Again this is a well-balanced device and both the head and the handle are adjustable for precise trimming. Rather than a string cutter an easy to fit blade does the work. Twenty blades are supplied, after they are finished Gtech will give you free blades for the life of the machine, you just pay for the P & P.

After ten minutes of trimming the work was done, Before finishing I checked the power level LED lights on the batteries and could have done all again without a re-charge.

As I sat sipping a beer admiring the striped lawn, neatly shaped bushes and weed-free patio I felt like a fraud as the results were stunning and the effort was minimal. Then I remembered the old doctor’s words ‘Get the right tools’. With Gtech I might even get to like this gardening game.

The cordless mower, hedge trimmer and grass trimmer are all available online from the Gtech website with free delivery. You can buy separately or choose a bundle which will save you money

For more information and to order go to www.gtech.co.uk