Table of Contents
Overview
Are you someone who enjoys gardening and everything that revolves around plants? If yes, you will enjoy learning about the uses, efficiency, and end results of gardening tools you are familiar with as well as some you might not be acquainted with.
Even if you don’t like gardening, you will still gain knowledge about some interesting facts of gardening and its tools. In recent years, there has been a revolutionary change in gardening with the advancement of technology. Many people have taken up gardening, whether it is backyard gardening or terrace/ balcony gardening in both rural and urban areas.
The Need of Gardening Tools
Gardening is on par with yoga and meditation in recent time because of its therapeutic factors. Most of us living a sedentary lifestyle and this have become a major threat to our health. In these times, gardening has become a favorite activity not only because of its rewarding factors like fruits, vegetables and flowers but also its positive impacts on our health.
Every gardening/plant enthusiast have a vision or plans about their dream garden. However, in order to achieve our gardening goals, we need certain tools apart from investing time and energy to make it happen.
These tools are like our magic wands or fairy godmother. You don’t have to own every gardening tool available in the market. You just need to familiarize yourself and choose the best tools for your gardening projects.
Our Focus
This article will help both amateur as well as advanced gardeners in choosing the tools according to their requirements, to avoid going overboard with purchasing.
Gardening tools for your dream garden
Gardening Gloves
They are an essential for gardening even if you like getting your hands dirty. The gloves protect our hands from cuts, pokes and bites and sting from bugs and insects. Choosing the right glove is important be it the fit or the material. You can wear latex rubber gloves for planting seeds, seedlings and non-prickly plants. For thorny plants like roses and euphorbia, you can opt for suede or canvas gloves with long cuffs. Ill-fitted gloves will cause blisters.
Pruning Shears
Pruning Shears are also called Secateurs. They help in pruning plants that are growing out of control to avoid overcrowding. Secateurs also give a clean cut and a well-maintained look to the plants. These Pruners are easy to hold since it is ergonomically designed and they need to be cleaned and sharpened occasionally.
Garden Hand Fork
This is an easy hand-held tool that helps in aerating and loosening hard soil for planting, digging up weeds. They are also used in tilling and in dividing plants for transplantation. They are ideal for planting garlic, potatoes, Dahlia, Tubers and yams.
Hand Trowel
Hand Trowel is probably one of the most popular garden tools. It is used for digging holes in the ground, moving soil and plants from one place to another while planting and potting. It is also used in mixing soil with peat moss, manure, coco peat, rice hull etc. Personally, this is my most used gardening tool.
Spade
It is a tool used for digging holes on a large space for plants, lifting sod and moving soil from one place to another. It is a short handled square shovel with flat blades.
3 Tine Hand Cultivator
The function of this tool is similar to the garden fork. It is used in loosening up hard soil, weeding and aerating the soil.
Loppers
Loppers are a type of scissors with long handles. They are used in cutting and pruning thick branches, shrubs and trees, mostly located in hard-to-reach areas. Loppers are the largest manual gardening cutting tools.
Shovel
Many people often confuse a shovel with the spade and sometimes use them interchangeably. A shovel is a lifting as well as digging tool. It is used as a transplanter, to move the soil from one place to another place, notably big mounds of soil unlike the spade; as a weeder and for removing roots and also for lifting debris. It is also used as a digging tool in landscape excavation.
Knee Pads
Knee Pads or Kneeling Pads is one gardening accessory or tool you should check out if you are someone who frequently gardens or has a joint pain or ache. It is a protective tool to ease your knee and joints since gardening involves a good amount of kneeling and bending. It can also safeguard you from scratches and bruises or any other injuries that is caused by kneeling.
Waterproof boots
While gardening, especially in regions where there is frequent rainfall, proper shoes are an essential. Waterproof duck boots are the best for protection. Wellington boots are a favorite among many gardeners.
Wheelbarrow
Wheelbarrow is one of the most versatile gardening tool or equipment. Gardening is a strenuous activity that includes a lot of lifting and moving. Wheelbarrow is your buddy in gardening. It can easily maneuver your gardening essentials, carry soil and compost, carry water cans and your plants or seedlings for planting, and your harvests from one site to another. When you are not using, you can keep your blooming flowers and ornamental plants in the wheelbarrow and add an aesthetic value or appeal to your garden or backyard.
Trimming Scissors
This are special scissors exclusively for gardening. Their thin and super sharp blades cleanly snips herbs, flower stems, deadheading, trimming buds and for pruning houseplants and shrubs.
Garden Rake
Garden rake is a useful gardening tool especially during autumn and spring, when the trees and plants begin to shed their leaves. A rake helps in removing your fallen leaves, flowers, pinecones and even fallen dead flowers from your plant beds and lawn.
Garden Hose
A Garden hose is a long, flexible tube that is connected to a water source at the other end, to help gardeners water wider lawns or gardens. You can also install a nozzle at the end of your hose and adjust the shower.
Watering Can
This is probably one of the most important gardening tools. If you plant a sapling or seeds, it will require water apart from soil and sunlight. Most plants need little to moderate watering unless it is a big tree or a bushy scrub. And these watering cans have tiny holes or sprinkler nozzle so it will water the plants adequately.
Garden Knife/ Hori Hori
A gardening knife is an exclusive knife for gardening. They are usually thicker than your normal kitchen knife. Garden Knife will help in cutting or slicing through roots, weeds, in dividing young and small plants and also as a planting depth tool. They are called Hori Hori in Japanese.
Hand Weeder
This gardening tool as the name itself suggest helps in weeding out weeds. Hand Weeder is especially helpful and essential in removing well-anchored taproots weeds with ease. It also helps in uprooting invasive plants.
Pruning Saw
Pruning Saw is a handheld tool with curved blade. It is mostly used in pruning semi- large tree branches. They will help in maintaining shrubs and small to medium trees.
Soil Test Kit
A soil test kit is an essential gardening kit every gardener needs. This kit will help you in identifying what type of soil your plants need and also its nutrients requirements.
Leaf Blower
As we have seen earlier, a Rake helps in raking the fallen leaves and flowers and other debris from the garden. Likewise, a Leaf Blower helps in cleaning and removing this debris efficiently by propelling air out of its nozzle without causing any damage to the plants. This tool is more convenient, especially in cleaning a big garden or lawn.
Lawnmower
If you have a big lawn or garden, you will need a lawnmower, which is a motorized equipment to trim your grass. It is expensive in comparison to your other gardening tools but it is worth investing. Your garden will look neat and tidy. And also, it is easy to operate and its effectiveness is commendable.
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Soil Scoop
This is an easy-to-handle gardening tool. It plays the role of both a Shovel and a Trowel for scooping the soil for transplanting and also for digging and weeding purposes.
Garden Apron
While working in a garden whether it is lifting soil and compost or planting, our clothes get dirty or stained. In order to solve this dilemma, the cheapest solution is getting or wearing a garden apron while gardening. Just like gloves protects your hands from dirt, bugs and prickly plants.
Aprons will also function as a protective gear against dirt, fertilizers and plant stains. They are also functional; you can keep your small tool like pruning shears, gardening scissors, hand fork, hand trowel, seeds and also small harvested fruits and vegetables in your Apron pockets.
Sickle
A Sickle is an important tool not only in gardening but also in agricultural field. This tool which has a wooden or plastic handle with a curved blade is used for harvesting or reaping grain crops, cutting or slicing fleshy stem plants for livestock and rabbits. This is a popular tool used in the rural areas where agriculture is a predominant occupation.
Grafting Tape
Grafting is a technique or method used by many experienced gardeners. And, grafting tape is the tool that helps in achieving that goal. It is a technique where stems from two different plants of the common species are taken to graft into a new species. Grafting tapes are taped around the stems, to hold it tightly without letting the moisture leave the plants. It protects the plants from dehydration. It is used in fruits, flowers, trees and vegetable plants.
Ladder
Ladder is a necessary equipment not only for a garden but also for home i.e., for drying and taking down your clothes from the clothesline. It is used in vertical gardening and beautifies your garden with this type of gardening. It is also used as a tool to pluck fruits like apples, oranges, grapes and also for trimming purpose.
Moisture meter
When we want to check if our plants need watering, we insert our finger in the soil and check its moisture. This is applicable in the case of small to medium potted plants. Whereas for big or large potted plants, a moisture meter is the most accurate tool to check if our plants need watering. It also helps in maintaining the health of your plants by avoiding overwatering and underwatering.
Apart from these gardening tools and equipment, there are many more tools like an axe, pitchfork, hoe, water sprayer, mattock etc. You can choose from these arrays of essential garden tools or supplies, according to what suits you best.
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A guide to choosing the right tools
Apart from choosing the right spot or site in your garden or backyard to experiment on your green fingers, the right soil and gardening tools play an important role in determining your project or outdoor activity.
These are some pointers we have to keep in mind before purchasing gardening tools, since there are a varied range of tools available in the market, and most of us have the tendency to go overboard and hoard even though we might never use them.
The Basics
- If you are an amateur or a beginner in gardening, you can begin with simple essential or basic tools like a pruning shear, hand trowel, hand fork, wheelbarrow, spade and a watering.
- Knowing and understanding the size of your garden project and the type of soil in your region will help you in selecting the right tools.
- You have to decide on your budget, consult an experienced gardener and then purchase only the most essential and simplest tools first.
Gardening gloves
- Gardening gloves, though many prefer working bare hands, is an important accessory. It will safeguard you from cuts, bites, stings and dirt, which will also prevent you from getting allergies. Therefore, it is important to choose the right glove material and fit depending on the kind of work you will be getting involved in.
Handheld Tools
- When it comes to handheld tools, the material of the handles is crucial. It will either make or break your gardening experiment. Handles are usually made of wood, plastic, carbon fiber and fiberglass. Research about these materials and choose what suits you best.
- When you go tools shopping, it is advisable to try holding the tools since most of them are handheld tools. Take a mental note on whether it is comfortable to hold and check if there are any defects.
- For tools like pruning shears, trimming scissors, loppers etc. You have to look at the details like its hinges, blades, springs and try squeezing them to check its smoothness and resistance.
Quality
- Lastly, don’t compromise on the quality. Always go for a warranty assured products. It will cause you a pinch when you first buy them, it will be worth every penny you spent. Good quality tools guarantee durability and comfort since they are ergonomically designed.
Conclusion
To conclude with, it is a common knowledge that our dream garden will not happen in a month or two. For every gardener, be it an amateur or an advanced one, it takes time for the fruits to bear. Gardening is one activity that demands our attention, time and hard work. It is one activity that is fulfilling and bears fruits in the form of flowers, fruits and vegetables.
Once you get your basics right i.e., finding the right spot, choosing the right tools, planting the right plants suitable for the region and investing in nurturing your plants, you will find your niche in gardening. I hope this article will help beginners as well as experienced gardeners to find the best tools for their dream project. Have a positive attitude persevere and have fun gardening!
