Can You Dig It?

Garden Tools

It’s springtime, and the yard is beckoning for time, attention, and hard work before it can serve as a place for relaxation.  Before you tackle trees, plant perennials, or mix mulch, it’s a good idea to assemble the tools you will need to take care of your outdoor areas.

Any visit to a hardware store or big box store can be overwhelming, towering aisle after aisle of terrific marketing, telling you that their item will solve all the problems in your life. Especially in Canada, there can be ten products or tools created for the same purpose!

Here are a few we find useful:

Loppers

Pruning twigs and small branches with loppers will make your job much more enjoyable. They are operated with two hands and have handles between one and three feet long, which can aid in long-reach jobs.

Pruning Shears

Also called secateurs, these hand shears help to reign in out-of-control plants and twigs. Bypass shears use a scissor-action to make clean cuts and avoid injuring the plants. Anvil shears are best for trimming dead wood.

Garden Hoe

A vegetable garden is a great place to use a sturdy, wide hoe; a flower garden might require a hoe with a more delicate, thinner blade. Look for a comfortable handle, and a sharp blade.

Can You Dig It?
Grabbing the right shovel for the job is going to make your yardwork more efficient and easier on your joints and muscles. The ideal height of a shovel should be about four inches lower than your shoulder when it is stood up straight. The weight is also an important consideration, as a heavy shovel will tire you out quickly, whereas a light shovel will not be as durable. 

Pointed Digger

An all-purpose tool that will serve you well – ideal for digging tough, compacted, rocky soils. It has a solid footplate for using your weight to dig down, and a nice long handle.

Flat shovel

This flat-bladed shovel has a large surface area primarily designed for scooping, moving, and spreading material from one place to another. If you use it for digging, choose soft soil or sand.

Edger

Creating clean lines around your flowerbeds takes a keen eye detail and an edger shovel. It has a shallow blade shaped like a semi-circle, and a straight foot plate for digging straight down into the lawn or soil.

Trenching Shovel

As the name suggests, this tool is for digging shallow trenches, or tidying them up. They have a long narrow blade and a pointed tip, with the blade set at an angle. These are often used by landscape gardeners.

Root Shovel

A sharp, serrated edge gives this blade an edge on cutting through tough established roots of old bushes and trees. Use the root shovel for digging holes for planting trees or for removing them.

Using the right tool for the task will help you propagate your plants and win the war on weeds. Happy Gardening!