Recommend me your best garden tools

[NotSoLittleDove]

I'm a little fed up trying to get a gardener in to tidy up the shrubs, so I'm going to learn to do it myself! Please can you recommend me your favourite garden tools for a novice - I'm thinking an electric trimmer, some type of weeding tool and a set of shears.

Any recommendations would be really helpful, as well as any other tools that would make it easier and fun (especially as I don't like creepy crawlies at all!). I have some gardening gloves, so that's a start!

Get a hori hori knife for weeding. They are amazing.

Ooh thanks, that looks really useful 🙂

Any other suggestions?

For larger weeding jobs, I am a fan of a reticulated hoe. I always used to use a dutch hoe but was bought a reticulated one for the allotment and am really loving it. It makes short work of weeding.

Oh, and Felco secatuers seem really expensive but last forever. For £25 you can send them off to Felco for servicing and they send them back almost like brand new - replacing any worn parts as part of that charge.

Second Felco secateurs.I have small hands and the size 6 are brilliant.Jokati topiary shears are great for trimming box ,bay etc.

Thanks all, this is great!

Wolf garden push pull hoe

Do you have a link for one?

@Seaitoverthere Thank you, I was just looking at this brand - seems very good from the reviews.

Sure - I have this one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07PD1Z6CZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

@FourFoxSake Thank you, I'm looking at all of their products now! Appreciate the recommendation.

if You are not interested or in to gardening then I’m sorry to have to tell you that different bits of kit aren’t going to help a lot, it’s mostly time you’ll need.

A good hand fork for basic weeding is essential in my view. Which? Best buy secateurs are the niwaki 103, but the Fiskars quantum are their best that you’re most likely to find at a garden centre.

What are you planning to trim with your electric trimmer? Buy rechargable battery models of anything electric if you can. I’ve got this little. Bosch isio set that’s great for trimming edges etc but it might not be what you are thinking of.

@LadyGardenersQuestionTime Yes, I appreciate that - I think I've struggled in the past because I haven't had the right kit. Figure if I invest in the right equipment to make it a little easier, and tackle one bit at a time, I'll hopefully manage. I have the interest, just not the know-how.

With the trimmer, I was planning to trim some of the smaller shrubs - I've seen that Bosch one which looks good, with two attachments? It's rechargeable as well I believe.

The tools I use all the time are a hand trowel (weeding and planting), secateurs, an old knife, all in one metal with a thick handle which looks like a poor man’s hori hori knife (weeding and cutting root masses) and a pruning saw - these are what sit in the small plastic trug/basket I carry round with me, along with scissors and twine.

Other tools that I use are extendable loppers, something that looks like litter pickers but with secateur blades instead of the gripping jaws, easier to manoeuvre through branches than loppers, garden shears for hedge trimming, and an old stainless steel spade with almost-snapped-through blade which I leave on the compost heap for ladling out compost. And a small electric lawnmower and a scythe and a grass rake for grass cutting.

@MereDintofPandiculation I plan to get most of your list, I have some of the tools already, so will see how I get on with the rest.

Are those weed-pulling gizmos any good? The ones you stick in the ground, turn and pull?

If you are going down the battery route and you need everything - buy your lawnmower, hedge trimmers, strimmer etc from the same brand and check if they have compatible batteries. Just easier for recharging etc.
I have that Bosch trimmer I think. It's great for small shrubs and I also use it for grass edges but you couldn't tackle a huge hedge. I'd put it in the nice to have category and invest in great secateurs I think. I have a medium sized garden and use it max twice a year.

I don't know if this is, strictly speaking, a garden tool but I've got one of these plastic trugs and I find it so useful

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Medium-Flexible-Storage-Container-Polyethylene/dp/B071WX744C/ref=asc_df_B071WX744C/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=344352605429&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=523671760812003073&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046449&hvtargid=pla-698108437102&th=1

You can buy them from anywhere is various colours and sizes or find them living free on the road side. I bought one to use as a cheap large planter (I was going to cut drainage holes in it). It's great for mixing compost, diluting plant food (that you can then funnel into a watering can), filling with water to dip watering cans in (quicker than filling from tap or hosepipe), emptying and washing plant pots and bird feeders, collecting prunings, weedings, soaking your feet, cooling beer and wine, small pool for toddlers, bath for dog.....

Just so, so useful.

Left handed secateurs were a revelation to me!

Thank you all, @BigBundleOfFluff that's a good idea, I'll see which has most tools with the same battery. @IcakethereforeIam thanks for the link, that looks really useful - if at least to keep all the tools in one place, might get a few of those ....

Yes. I second the trug idea. @MereDintofPandiculation are scythes easy to use? I was wondering about buying one but I think it is probably just to satisfy my romanticised Poldark image of my DH scything our garden whilst I drink tea. I am guessing they are useful for wild flower areas/ long grass?

i love this weed slice hoe. Works so well between plants.

I also like a long-handled hand fork, as at 76 my back isn’t what it was!

I recently bought this spade which works really well on the clay soil in part of my garden, which is full of roots.

I also own a pair of Jokati shears, which make light work of trimming back shrubs.

There's videos on you tube. You need to learn how to use them and then practise. Key things are 1) glide the blade along the ground, don't let it come up at the end of the sweep 2) use a big sweep - it cuts by the blade pulled across the grass stem rather than chopping it straight through 3) don't try to cut too much in one sweep - move an inch forward at the most 4) if you lose the knack - it's not you, you need to sharpen the blade with a few strokes of the whetstone you are carrying with you.

Brush cutting is easiest, then long grass with flowering stems. Slightly overlong lawn grass is more difficult. Yes, I use it for the end of season cutting of my wildflower lawn

@NanTheWiser I like the Burgon and Ball stiff. I go and stroke them in the shop at Harlow Carr, while I marvel at what all that variety of tools could possibly be used for.

DH bought me this style of weeder. I remember thinking ‘wth has he got me this for?’
It is my most used tool

this type

I use a hoof pick for weeding. Can get them out of tack shops or decathlon. In the horsey section.