Essential Garden Tools To Create An Epic Outdoor Garden

All you need is elbow grease and a few critical garden tools to make your garden great!

The real results—and benefits—of a beautifully manicured garden stem from your exertions; the sweat of your brow, so to speak. Nonetheless, a few tools can make it a lot easier.

If you’ve been gardening for years, this is not new information, but if you’re new at it, like a young couple in your first home with a yard, you’ll want to bookmark this one and head over to Toemar soon.

Tools That Every Gardener Needs

Whether it’s a patch of green behind your house or a standard ‘city’ yard, there are certain tools that every gardener needs in their basic kit.

Trowel — This small tool is used to scoop and move earth and plants.

Spade — This shovel-like implement has a rectangular head and a sharp edge. Use it for cutting up earth, turf or digging.

Rake — At the very least, you’ll want a leaf rake but you can also consider a hand rake for when you need to work around plants that are more delicate, without damaging anything.

Hoe — This tool with a longer handle than a handheld has a thin metal blade. You use it for weeding or cutting up the earth, before planting.

Round head shovel — This is an essential tool for digging and moving materials like gravel and mulch around. Look for one with a D shaped handle, and a short enough shaft that you’ve got the leverage you need when using it.

Hose & Nozzle — Once you’ve planted your fabulous new garden or laid your grass seed or turf, you’ll need to keep it moisturized! A hose and adjustable nozzle are just the ticket to keep on top of your garden’s water needs.

Wheelbarrow — When planting, it’s a lot easier to buy loads of soil, topsoil etc., however carrying these bags is back breaking work so make sure you have a solid wheelbarrow to help with the heavy lifting.

Lawn Mower — Electric, gas or hand pushed, a lawnmower is essential for any yard space larger than a postage stamp. Keeping your grass at the right height ensures its health: That the stems get enough sun and rain, that you don’t get an influx of crab grass or weeds and generally have a healthy looking green space!

Extras?

Edge trimmer — Grass edges, around flower beds, shrubs and trees are hard to mow, so an edge trimmer (usually gas or electric) can help clean up these areas nicely.

Garden scissors — Having a pair of scissors that are exclusively kept with your garden tools makes sense and you’ll use them more often than you think: cutting herbs, removing the deadheads on perennials, cutting twine and so on.

Gardening gloves — These are a good idea of you are at all squeamish about bugs, worms or anything else that lives in the loam. A couple of other reasons for investing in a solid pair of gardening gloves is that they keep your hands safe from splinters, your nails impeccable and makes cleaning up after a long day of gardening a snap, allowing more time for sitting on the patio, with a drink and your feet up!

How To Pick Out The Right Tools

Go to the store and try them out! Okay, don’t go and dig in the garden store’s plant area, but you definitely want to handle the tools and see if they fit your hand and aren’t too heavy to use. Something might look good on a screen but when you see it in real life, you might realize that the shaft is just too long or heavy for you to handle.

Tools That Experienced Gardeners Need

Shears — Whether trimming grass around a feature, edging a garden bed, cutting back grasses or shrubbery, shears are an all around useful tool for the more careful cutting that needs to be done.

Muck Truck — Think of it as part wheelbarrow and part Tonka truck. Basically, it is a motorized wheelbarrow but with three times the capacity of the traditional kind, with an engine that can handle most uneven ground levels without losing a bit of earth, sand or gravel. It has 4 wheel drive and can go in reverse, and is equipped with a set of breaks so that it doesn’t become a runaway barrow on an incline!

Pruner — When you’re cutting branches that are less than 3/4” thick, where a saw or chainsaw is just ‘too much’, a pruner is a great way to get it done cleanly and neatly. You can also get telescopic ones with a rope action so that you can reach some branches that are high up without bothering with the ladder. If you prefer the ladder, a long handled pruner is still a good idea.

Bow rake — This is the perfect tool for leveling soil in your garden beds, spreading mulch or compost and generally keeping everything in your garden on the straight and narrow!

Is It Better To Buy Or Rent Bigger Items?

This depends entirely on the type of gardening you do. A person who does landscaping not only for themselves but for other family members or even as a volunteer for a local horticultural society might consider buying but for a one off project? Renting makes good sense. You get professional grade tools for just the amount of time you need to get the project done!

The types of tools you can rent include:

• Compactors and hand tampers
• Saws, including table saws
• Stone cutters
• Rock dolly
• Lawn rollers
• Muck Trucks

Taking Care Of Your Tools

Once you’ve made an investment in the necessary tools, you need to be sure to take care of them so that they’ll last you a long while. Wipe down any dirt or water off of your hand tools and store them. Ideally, long shafted shovels, hoes and rakes will be hung on the shed or garage wall, keeping the blades and tines in good shape, sharp and ready to go the next time you need them.

Make sure your mower blade is always sharp, to get optimal performance and check the tires on your wheelbarrow for proper inflation. If every tool has a place for storage, they’ll be easy to find when you just want to spend an hour doing a little weeding before you stretch out on the lounge chair and enjoy a sunny afternoon!

If you’ve rented the garden tools, then you don’t have to worry about the tools being maintained which leaves you more time to enjoy garden space you’ve so lovingly created.

Whether a newbie to the world of gardening, or an old hand, find a garden centre that you like and don’t be afraid to ask the staff questions! It’s what we’re here for!