Best Garden Hose Reel in 2024: Retractable, Carts, and Mounted

We’ve all been there. You’ve just finished watering your lawn or garden. When you look back over your shoulder, you’ve got a long trek back to the beginning of the garden hose. Forget trying to wrestle it into a neat coil. By the time you’ve dragged 100+ feet of hose across the yard, you’re lucky if it’s not hung up on a bush in a tangled mess. It doesn’t have to be so hard. Behold, the garden hose reel: a simple but magnificent invention. Having the best garden reel will make your life a little easier.

Today’s garden hose reels come in many different forms — from simple wall-mounted reels, to convenient mobile carts, to heavy-duty “hideaways.” Now is a great time to choose a garden reel that will lengthen the life of your garden hose, keep your lawn nice and tidy, and prevent all sorts of aggravation!

Our Top Picks: Best Garden Hose Reels

Here are our top picks:

• Best Overall: Hampton Bay Commercial Wall-Mount Hose Reel. All-metal construction, ultra-tough, simple to use, and install. This hose reel has everything you need.
• Best Budget: Yard Butler IHCWM-1 Hose Reel. Keeping it as simple as possible? Try this well-constructed American classic.
• Best Wall-Mounted: Yard Butler 100049505 Steel Hose Reel. This wall-mounted garden hose reel is sleek and utilitarian, with a swivel for a little flair.
• Best Retractable: RL Flo-Master Retractable Hose Reel. Need a little extra help reeling it in? This self-contained retractable hose reel is here for you.
• Best Heavy Duty: Giraffe Metal Hose Reel. This reel brings the sturdiness — it’s all metal, sealed against leaks, and anti-rust powder coated.
• Best Cart: Liberty Garden Four Wheel Hose Cart. Resist the urge to buy a cheap plastic cart. For a little more dough, this Liberty 4-wheeler will go the distance.
• Best For Blending In: Suncast Resin Hideaway Outdoor Storage Reel. For those who want an inconspicuous reel, this affordable option keeps everything tidy and tucked away.
• Best Decorative: Liberty Garden Steel Decorative Garden Hose Reel. Looking for a prettier way to reel in and store your garden hose? This decorative reel would be right at home on the side of an English cottage.
• Best Organizer: BirdRock Home Garden Hose Holder. Sometimes a decorative pot will do just fine, especially if it’s rust-resistant and features an interior hose guide.

Even though this Hampton Bay reel is technically called a “commercial” wall-mounted garden hose reel, that merely speaks to its durability and toughness. The majority of users install this hose reel in a residential setting and point out that its camel color blends nicely with a wide variety of home exteriors. You can also anchor the unit to your lawn, or even add the rubber bumpers for a non-skid floor mount.

This reel features a straightforward design, has all brass and galvanized fixtures, and get this — a limited lifetime warranty. And it’s only a little more expensive than similar capacity plastic or resin hose reels. This garden hose reel is the one!

Here is your simple, classic, wall-mounted garden hose reel. Heavy-duty, easy to install and use, and best of all: cheap. And they even come in multiple colors! If you’re looking for a zero-fuss, ultra-simple garden hose reel, look no further than the Yard Butler IHCWM-1.

Made by the same company as our budget pick, the Yard Butler 100049505 Steel Hose Reel has the same well-reviewed qualities but takes it up a few notches. This garden reel has a sturdy, extra-wide mounting bar. Its swing arm pivots, allowing the reel to swivel 180 degrees. Since the hose is accessible from any angle, there’s less backtracking around corners and hose-tangling.

This garden reel hose is consistently well-reviewed. It features a simple design, but with a few key upgrades that really go the distance, including a lifetime warranty!

Looking for a more self-contained garden hose reel that requires a little less elbow grease? If you want your garden hose reel to do more of the work for you, consider this Flo-Master retractable model.

This reel includes its own 65 ft hose, which comes with a threaded brass end and an 8-pattern spray nozzle. An automatic guide aids in hose retraction, and when mounted, this unit allows for a 180-degree swivel. The other convenient feature of this retractable hose reel is that it’s detachable. You can dismount and store the hose reel during the winter.

We like the Giraffe metal hose reel for two main reasons. While it’s heavy-duty and very sturdy, it’s also a streamlined, tidy hideaway option for your garden hose.

The Giraffe Durable Cabinet also offers an automatic, adjustable hose guide and a double seal watertight system to keep water out. Reviewers love that this reel is heavy enough to stay put, attractive, and most think it’s well worth its slightly higher price point.

Most garden hose carts are plastic or resin. While some are reasonably sturdy, the best garden hose carts are metal. A slightly more significant investment in a strong, metal hose cart means it won’t fall apart in months. You also won’t constantly be dealing with broken parts.

This LIberty Garden four-wheeler will withstand years of frequent use and can accommodate much longer hoses.

The Liberty Garden hose cart also features a handy wire basket to hold attachments or gardening tools you might like with you. When you’re not using it, wheel it into your garage for easy storage.

This garden reel is a solid choice if you want a medium-sized, unobtrusive reel to store your garden hose when you’re not using it. This unit truly blends into its surroundings. It offers a higher hose length capacity and a track to guide your hose into the reel. Best of all, it comes in at a very affordable price point.

This Liberty Garden decorative hose reel checks every box for a solid wall mounted reel:

• Sturdy powder-coated steel frame
• Easy to install
• Easy to use/crank
• Brass swivel

And, then, on top of all of that — it looks pretty. Honestly, we think this is something of a feat for a garden hose reel.

Finally, our last pick is this BirdRock Home garden hose holder. If you want something decorative, simple, and intended for shorter hoses, this handsome organizer is your winner.

The BirdRock hose holder is made of lightweight but durable steel and has a drainage hole with a rubber plug. There’s no crank or other reeling mechanism. Still, this organizer has a removable center post, which helps guide the hose as you coil and uncoil.

What to Look for in the Best Garden Hose Reels

Once you have a suitable garden hose reel, you’ll wonder how you ever functioned without one. Here’s what to consider to find the best match for your yard:

Durablity. Watch out for plastic and resin hose reels. They’re definitely cheaper, but over time will become brittle in sunlight, and break more frequently.

Ease of Use. Consider your arm and back strength. You may want to try a retractable garden hose reel if you need a little extra support in reeling in your hose. Or, some of the heavier duty wall-mounted crank reels feature extra smooth reeling and unreeling — at a height that means less bending over.

Length. Most hose reels seem to significantly overestimate their hose length capacity. Make sure that you’re buying a reel that has a little more capacity than what you think you’ll need. Also, consider any extra allowance for heavier-duty or thick garden hoses.

Features. Some hose reels come with a “leader hose,” which is basically a few feet of hose incorporated into the unit that attaches to your longer hose. These can work well, but sometimes they can also be prone to quality issues. You may also consider if you want a hose reel with a swiveling mechanism. The ability to quickly re-direct and find different angles while using your garden hose can be a nice feature.

Our Process

For this guide on garden hose reels, our team spent 5 hours researching the most popular options from over 40 brands and manufacturers big and small. We then read about two hundred user reviews (both positive and negative) to discover what shoppers thought about each reel. After comparing this data, we narrowed our list down to the top 9 garden hose reels on the market. You can count on this research to guide you to a mindful purchasing decision.

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