Thanks for the info about being exempt from hosepipe bans, I have a blue badge but didn't know that. My solution has been to bury lengths of microporous into all the raised beds and borders with plants that need regular watering, with the connector ends sticking out of the soil that can be attached to the garden hose, then if there is a dry spell just when the plants need regular watering I can attach the garden hose to the leaky hoses. My water is on a meter so I have a timer on the garden tap that can be set to switch off after half an hour. I have a series of garden hoses that connect to the different beds so I do have to go out and change the hose connected to the tap and timer at regular intervals to water the entire garden.
I can't bend to reach further than half way down my shins. I find the raised beds I use most easily are both 80cm high, they are where I grow salad leaves, spring onions and courgettes that need picking often and would hide under the leaves if they were lower down. The problem with very high raised beds is that you need a lot of compost to fill them. The first year I filled them half way up with sticks, logs, all kinds of cuttings and garden waste, then filled to the top with proper compost. As the cuttings and waste decomposed the soil sank down, and I had to keep refilling them with a few extra sacks of compost each year.
The other raised beds are 30cm high but the soil has compacted to about 5cm, so I'm paying to get them filled to the brim with 40 sacks of fresh compost next month. Filling large raised beds is more expensive than you think.
I like to grow the French climbing beans Cobra, on wigwams made from tall poles. If I started them in the raised beds I'd need a stepladder to pick the beans, so they go into a bed at normal soil level. Until a year arrived when I just couldn't reach far enough to plant them.
The garden tools I get the most use out of now that I can't bend are an assortment of Wolf-Garten detachable handles in several different lengths, along with a series of interchangeable tools.
I start the beans in root trainers in the greenhouse, then once the ground has warmed I dig a little hole with the hand trowel on a long handle, balance the seedling with it's plug of soil on the blade of the trowel and gently slide it into the planting hole before quickly firming it in with my walking stick.
I also have long handled grabby sticks tucked into the top of my garden apron, and inside the greenhouse https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079K2R5QJ these are the only decent reliable ones.
I use different wolf-garten hoe attachments (a pointy triangular one for getting between plants which they don't seem to sell now, a push pull weeder and a Dutch hoe) on a long handle to loosen the roots of annual weeds, then hoik them up with the grabby stick into a trug. It's frustratingly like those seaside arcade machines where you try to pick toys up with crane, but at least it gets to job done.
Long rooted weeds like dandelions and thistles call for the weed puller, a delightful invention, my neighbour watched me using it and then borrowed it to get all the dandelions out of her lawn. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017D2JDS2
When planting according to the intensive square foot gardening system I use a small cultivator attachment to loosen the soil, the rake attachment to level it, then a bamboo cane to poke a hole to the correct depth at the required distance from the other seeds in that part of the grid, before positioning a length of aluminium pipe directly on top of the hole and dropping the pea seeds down the pipe. It always makes me feel like a very cunning tool using ape when I see the seeds sprouting just where I would have planted them if I had been able to bend down and press them directly into the soil.
Once the beds and borders are planted I hobble about with a trug full of strulch https://www.strulch.co.uk/ dropping a thick layer of it between all the plants. It discourages the voracious local slugs and snails, and prevents annual weeds from taking hold saving loads of weeding with the grabby stick. Strulch is lighter and easier to spread than bark mulch and it seems to last longer than bark before it needs to be redone.
Getting old and doddery is infuriating when you have been used to having a garden and an allotment. Pruning becomes a lot more difficult when your hands are feeble and arthritic and you can't bend further than half way down your shins. These long handled loppers are brilliant, www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01EWU0LY8 they cut through thicker branches than expected, with amazing ease because the long handle act as levers, they allow me to cut through the old Japanese wineberry vines right down at ground level, leaving lots of space and light for the next year's growth. They also make it possible to keep the lavender and southernwood from turning into path blocking thugs, allowing me to cut them back hard without having to bend.
I use the springtined rake attachment to drag all the copped off bits into a heap, and then try to balance the cuttings on the rake and use my walking stick to keep them from falling off as I lift them into the trug. Or try to sweep them into a heap and use the long handled dustpan and brush to lift them into the trug.
The only thing that I haven't managed to find a workaround for is digging with a spade. I ordered a bare rooted black currant bush (Big Ben) and when it arrived I went out to dig the planting hole. It needed a decent sized hole, not something I could excavate with the hand trowel. A proper spade jobbie with blood and bone forked into the bottom of the hole.
That's when I discovered that my useless leg has now become too feeble to push the spade into the ground (lovely sandy loam you can dig it with your fingers). So I tried to use the other, still functioning leg to push on the spade, but that meant all my weight was on the treacherous leg, which promptly gave out. Luckily I was leaning on the spade so wasn't forced to crawl ignominiously across the garden until I could find something sturdy to hold onto while I pulled myself up again. I tried standing on both feet and thrusting the spade into the ground from a great height, but wasn't strong enough. In the end I had to admit defeat and ask a friend for help.