Tools Used For Gardening
Welcome to the GardenWild recommended tools for gardening. As gardeners in North Yorkshire with over 50 years experience, we are passionate about planting, designing and maintaining gardens of all shapes and sizes. However you need the right tools for the job! So in this article we intend to let you know which tools you need and which ones we recommend, from small lawn mowers, to the best cordless hedge cutters. We’ll also give you a list of things we think you need when you’re starting out.
Just getting started
Why not have a look at our beginners guide to gardening! It’s full of helpful tips to get you started.
Basic Tools For Gardening
There are some tools that are only good for specific jobs, a hedge cutter is amazing at cutting hedges, but you wouldn’t use it to prune your apple trees. There are some tools, however, that we feel every gardener needs.
In this section we’ll give you a checklist of tools to have in your trug and we’ll also recommend our favourites.
Best Garden Trowel
The garden hand trowel is probably one of the best tools for doing anything in the borders. You use it for everything, from planting, weeding, cutting through dry soils, to digging out roots.
Best Garden Gloves
It’s important to get the right gardening gloves. You want something that’s got good grip, is durable, breathable but is also long lasting. They have to provide enough comfort so that you don’t develop blisters or sores and you’d be surprised how easy it is.
Garden Claw Tool
We use the garden claw all the time. We use it for loosening the soil and creating a good fluffed-up finish. You can also use it to weed the smaller annuals.
Plastic Garden Trugs
When we refer to a trug, we mean a rubber bucket the gardeners use for… well nearly everything. We carry our tools in it when we’re weeding, we put our waste in it, and if anything needs moving by hand, soil, turf or whatever, it goes in the trug. It’s a must have!
Best Secateurs
A good pair of secateurs are a must-have. Quality is a big factor in the choice of secateurs. I’ve broken a cheap one in half before now by applying too much pressure. Another thing that is essential is keeping them sharp. Sharp secateurs can cut through nearly anything but the more blunt they are, the more likely they are to break.
What’s living in your garden?
There is an entire world of creatures living in your garden. Check out Gardening For Wildlife for advice on how to make them more comfortable.
Large Hand Tools That Everyone Needs
These are heavy duty tools or tools for more specific jobs. Whether you need them for digging tree pits or edging your lawn, there is a tool that fits the job. With these tools we’re moving away from just pottering around the garden and looking more at the soil and shaping the garden.
In this section we’ll give you a check list of larger hand tools and recommend our favourites.
Best Garden Spade
A spade is primarily used for digging. Unlike the shovel it has a sharp edge for cutting into the soil. I don’t really know what else I can say about a spade. It’s a spade. A spade’s a spade ‘in it?’
This is obviously something you need if you intend to do anything bigger than pottering in the flower beds.
Best Garden Shovel
When’s a spade not a spade? When it’s a shovel. We use the shovel for mainly moving soil and other garden material. As you can imagine there are a lot of practical uses to this.
Beven (Gardenwild gardener) calls them “the gardener's tea spoon”… It doesn’t really make any sense.
Best Loppers
Loppers are a essentially a long handled version of secateurs. They are use to cut though things that are too large for secateurs. You should always have a pair handy whenever you’re doing any pruning. There’s the temptation, if you don’t have your loppers to hand, to try to get by with just secateurs. I’ve been guilty of this, more from laziness than anything else. You will end up damaging your secateurs (and I did).
Best Garden Hoe
The garden hoe is very good for removing annual weeds. Not the tool for weeds like dandelions because the they regenerate from root fragments and the hoe tends to just knock the tops off them.
It is however a really good tool if you need to clear a bed quickly and we use it a lot on the maintenance rounds, where time is a factor.
Best Leaf Rake
A leaf rake is obviously a must, especially during autumn, when all the deciduous trees drop their leaves. You’ll feel like you’ll never stop raking!
I heard a story once about someone who had called the RHS, frustrated by constantly raking up leaves and looking for advice. He asked if it was a good idea to chop off all the branches that produced leaves and that way catch the leaves before they fall.
Best Pruning Saw
The pruning saw is for the jobs that are even too big for the loppers. Things like removing limbs from trees. We have used them to cut down smaller trees before, but I wouldn’t recommend it, your arm feels like it’s going to fall off after a while. The pruning saw is another thing that you should always have with you, if you’re doing any pruning.