My lawn is dry and compacted, but this weed puller made removing even the most stubborn dandelions a breeze – in half the time, too

I always thought weeding the lawn was a boring, strenuous task, but then I got my hands on the GARDENA Weed Puller – and it swiftly proved me wrong.

If you’re looking for ways to get rid of weeds in your lawn, I can’t recommend this tool enough. It’s a robust, long-handled weed puller that’s super easy to use, and it targets stubborn, tap-rooted weeds like dandelions right at the root, removing the entire thing in one swoop. At £40 from B&Q, it’s a little pricier than other weed pullers out there, but having tried it in my own garden, I’d absolutely pay more for a durable piece of kit that makes light work of tough weeds.

My lawn was covered in weeds, and it’s really hard and compacted, so I thought it was going to be a long road to tackling them all – but the GARDENA Weed Puller halved the amount of time I expected it to take, and actually made the task really fun.

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If I had to rank garden tools by ease of use, I think I’d put the GARDENA Weed Puller in S tier. It’s a simple design: long, with a comfortable handle grip on the end, and light enough to use comfortably over longer sessions.

What struck me, though, is that those ‘longer’ weeding sessions weren’t that long at all. The weed puller is really easy to use – you simply push the sharp end of the tool over the centre of the weed, using the footrest to push it in as far as you can, and then twist the handle 180 degrees before pulling the tool (and the weed) out from the lawn. I thought it would be tricky to dig the blades all the way in because my lawn is so dry and in need of revival, but they’re so sharp that it didn’t take nearly as much effort as I expected.

There’s also a built-in ejector mechanism that you simply slide to push and release the weed from the weed puller. It’s so easy to use and allows you to quickly clear each weed before tackling the next.

The GARDENA weed puller successfully retrieved each weed (in its entirety – tap root and all!) 99% of the time. The other 1% was just down to my positioning the weed puller wrong, so it’s a really accurate tool. I had some huge dandelions in my lawn, but it was no more difficult to remove those than the smaller weeds out there. It’s also really satisfying to pull the whole root system out of the soil, rather than pluck the leaves from the surface like other weeding tools tend to do.

The only thing that alarmed me, at first, was the holes the weed puller leaves in its wake. They’re sizeable enough to notice, especially once they’ve removed larger weeds – but I like to think of it as a form of lawn aeration (which my compacted lawn absolutely needs!)

Reviewers agree that the GARDENA Weed Puller ‘makes weeding the lawn so much easier,’ with another noting that it’s ‘an amazing back saver and so efficient and quick.’ One reviewer mentioned that it can ‘get into the hardest soil,’ too, which I can vouch for, because my lawn is dry, hard, and stony in places.

Other weeding tools we rate

The GARDENA weed puller is well worth the investment if you're looking for a robust weeding tool that can tackle even the stubbornest weeds in your lawn.