Hand-held rotavator for flower beds?

[costagirl]

Our hideous flower beds are a mass of deep rooted weeds which it's impossible to get up by hand. I need a small rotavator to churn it all up - can only see big ones in B & Q etc. Anyone know of where I can get something like that?

I'd be very wary of using a rotavator if you have deep rooted weeds, things like dandelions, nettles, ground elder, thistle etc are all perennial. This means that if you chop them up with a rotavator then each piece of root you chop up will regenerate into a new weed. It will be weed city in a few weeks...

You either;

(a) dig out by hand
(b) use a geotextile membrane to suffocate the little blighters - but you need to leave it on for at least this summer.
(c) Spray with a translocated weedkiller. Something like roundup.

I'd spray if you have nothing that you want to keep.

If you are still convinced that rotavating is the way to go then you are looking at cultivators, however my clay soil laughs in the face of these lightweights .

HTH