My best gardening tools!

We're drowning in choice with a new 'game changing' tool announced seemingly every month! But which tools do you actually need? Which are my essentials and which are the luxuries?

I think it’s fair to say that we are drowning in an overabundance of choice, in every facet of life, whether it’s food, paint colours, tools, food, even water?! Manufacturers, designers, and retailers give us so many options, just to squeeze every last penny out of us… But now it’s almost impossible to know where to begin and I find myself regularly trapped in a state of analysis paralysis! Retail induced anxiety! Am I buying the right thing?!

Shiny Handtools

The allure of shiny tools

Wander into any garden centre and, through no fault of your own, you’ll find yourself in the tool section. You don’t mean to go there, but like a moth to flame, you cannot resit. Dazzling your eyes and tickling your money bags, you’ll find an expansive range of gardening tools, usually from Kent & Stow, Burgon & Ball, Bulldog, Wolf-Garten, to name just a few.

If you’re starting out on your gardening journey, or even if you’re a long way along that rosey road, it’s very easy to convince yourself to part with hard earned cash and the choice is utterly bewildering.

I’m pretty sure my Great Grandmother had just a handful of tools. Literally… A spade. A fork. A hoe. A pickaxe or mattock (yes, she was formidable). Then one trowel. And one hand fork. One pair of secateurs. She was an incredible gardener. Bless her. Small, but mighty and occasionally terrifying, with a vice-like grip!

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Tools amassed, surreptitiously

In my gardening years, I have built a collection of tools that I really should look after better. I see Insta Reels and YouTubes of shiny stainless steel, soaped and lathered… oiled… It’s quite filthy stuff. My tools must ache for such attention! Alas, a wipe off with a dirty mitt and hung in the dry is all they get.

Knowing that I was about to write this piece, I had a look around my makeshift tool rack. I was going to write about how few tools you actually need. Standing there in wide-eyed alarm, I didn’t even realise I had so many! Here they are… Deep inhale!

• Standard Garden Spade

• Border Spade

• Groundbreaker Spade

• Trenching Spade

• Perennial Spade

• Shovel x2

• Mini/Micro Shovel

• Border Fork

• Hoe

• Soil Rake

• Leaf Rake

• Lawn Edger

• Hand fork x2

• Long-handled Trowel

• Hand Trowel x2

• Scoop x2

• Daisy Grubber x2

• Dibber x2

• Long-handled Bulb Planter

• Bypass Loppers

• Anvil Loppers

• Extendable pruner/secateurs

• Secateurs x8 (yes, really!)

• Shears x2

• Garden Knife x2

• Hori Hori

• Pruning Saw x2

• Axe x2

• Wrecking Bar

That’s 46! Not including the broken garden fork I use to turn compost, watering cans, the wheelbarrows, and all the propagation and watering kit. I could open a shop! In fairness, I have a large’ish garden and there are two of us gardening (now and again).I’ve also inherited a few of these, one way or another. The nicer and pricier Niwaki and Sneeboer tools were birthday gifts. But still…

Ooof! There’s a lot!

So, in a rapid change of plan, I will whittle down my tools to the essentials. If I was threatened with eviction and was only allowed to take a Great Grandmother’s handful. It would be a spade, a trowel, secateurs, and watering can. (If no one was looking I’d swipe my mini-perennial spade, daisy grubber, and rake too.)

If you are starting out, I would say these are the essentials and will allow you to carry out almost every basic gardening task. There is minimal soil cultivation here, but most gardeners would probably want a fork too. The others, like the perennial spade, to which I am emotionally attached, are luxuries that make particular jobs easier and more comfortable. So without further ado, here are…

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My favourites

These are tools that I use, day-to-day. I’ll also explain a few gardening tool names, plus a bonus selection featuring effective, but non-essential gardening tools, including one invaluable but bonkers addition!

The vast majority have wooden handles (usually ash) and stainless steel parts. I just find stainless much easier to look after as it doesn’t rust and it’s easy to clean with a quick hosing down. Well-used wooden handles are far less likely to give me blisters unlike plastic or rubber, no matter how ergonomic.

Brands?

I’m not a dedicated follower of any one particular brand. I think that would be naive because no one manufacturer makes the best ‘everything’. However, I do seem to gravitate to a few that I’ve found to be of high quality and reliability: Niwaki for blades; Gardena for watering and irrigation; Burgon & Ball and Kent & Stowe for ground work and hand tools; Sneeboer is purely aspirational but outstanding quality!

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Number 1: Secateurs

I have a few older pairs from Felco and Wilkinson Sword, etc. and I was gifted a pair from both Burgon & Ball and Gardena. BUT my go to pair are the Niwaki Pro secateurs. I absolutely love them! They were a wonderful birthday gift and massively appreciated!

They’re always with me. They fit in my hand really well which is rare as I have relatively small hands. I can use them for hours and not feel any discomfort. The blades are incredibly sharp and easy to maintain with a fine sharpening stone. I use these for almost everything. I don’t attempt to cut anything woody that’s thicker than a small finger’s width. You’d risk notching or warping the blade. Besides, that’s what loppers are for!

Note: I invested in a holster which is recommended and much safer. The tip is very sharp and I punctured my arm on their very first outing! The first time I put these in my pocket I nearly lost something extremely valuable!! Ooof!!

Number 2: Bypass Lopers

If you have mature shrubs, roses, and trees, then you’ll definitely want to get into a pruning schedule and invest in some lopers. Secateurs are no good on thicker woody stems and branches. You’ll only damage the blades, the plant, or yourself!

The long-handled bypass lopers come into their own when you need to cut branches and canes thicker than a finger width. I have a relatively cheap pair that were given to me by a neighbour, but I keep them sharp! I prefer bypass lopers (with blades that ‘pass’ like secateurs) compared to ‘anvil’ pruners. I just find they make a cleaner cut.

Number 3: Shears

Again, these are from Niwaki. The Okatsune No.217. (I promise, I’m not an affiliate!) These 21-inch sheers have razor sharp blades. They’re so sharp you could shave with them. Lethal actually. I’ve sliced my fingers quite often while cleaning the blades, so be warned! But that sharpness is a blessing when it comes to topiary and hedge clipping.

They’re light, well-balanced, and manoeuvrable, just what you want for shaping topiary. The light weight is also very welcomed when clipping hedges. I have lots of topiary in this garden and yew hedges. The hedges aren’t really large enough to warrant a hedge trimmer, but I can fly along with these blades.

Number 4: Folding Knife

Whether it’s opening bags of compost or grit, cutting twine, needing a sharp blade for preparing cutting material for propagation, it’s great to just have a truly sharp folding knife in your pocket. Rather than having to drop everything and trot off to the shed or garage and rummage around for a suitable blade. I have the Niwaki Blue Steel Higonokami Folding Knife with its beautiful hand forged 3" folded Hitachi aogami Blue Steel blade. It’s razor sharp!

Digging Spade | Border Spade | Groundbreaker | Border Fork | Shovel

Number 5: Spades & Shovels

I have three spades and two flat shovels. Essentially, the difference between a spade and shovel is that you scoop with a shovel and dig with a spade. The shovel has a larger, wider, concave blade with an angled shaft, ideal for loading. A spade, is generally straight, with a narrower flat blade, for slicing through soil.

Digging Spade

When I started gardening, I snapped two spades in short succession. I had opted for the cheaper option and regretted it. “Buy cheap, buy twice!” So, I paid a little more for a Moulton Mill spade by Gardman. Not posh, by any means. I had never heard of the brand, but I’ve had this digging spade for a decade at least. You can pay £40-£50 for a Burgon & Ball or Kent & Stowe, £60 for a DeWit, upwards of £110 for a Sneeboer!

This spade really has had some abuse over the years. Digging up trees, roots, buried concrete and bricks. You name it. In this garden, we’ve found everything apart from an unexploded bomb! If you have dense clay, you will find spades with pointed or round blades much more effective at penetrating hard ground and these are called ‘groundbreakers’. After jarring my wrist a few times, I invested in a Burgon & Ball Groundbreaker spade and it’s brilliant!

Border Spade

The border spade is smaller by comparison and great for manoeuvring in a densely planted border. The blade is half the size and the shaft 20% shorter. I find it ideal for planting the common 2-3 litre pot size rootball that you buy in garden centres. As this is a no-dig garden, the only digging is to make tight planting holes and I’m using this border spade almost all the time. The digging spade only comes out when I’m planting trees and shrubs or dividing clumps.

Perennial Spade

Lastly, I have a perennial spade (pic below). A cross between a large trowel and a very small spade with a heart-shaped blade. You can see it’s much shorter, with its sharp triangular blade. It’s excellent for making small planting holes in cultivated soil, but still sharp enough to dig in hard ground.

This perennial spade comes in very useful for planting in the top mulch in my no-dig garden beds, perfect size for 9cm or 1-2 litre root balls, whether it’s potted on cuttings or my seed-raised squash, courgette, and sweet corn in the summer.

I like the sharp blade as you can make nice clean holes and the T-handle enables extra pressure and leverage. This one is the Dixter model by Sneeboer. I had the Burgon & Ball version and that was absolutely fine. You can also search for Micro Shovels in building suppliers like Screwfix.

Shovel

The flat shovel is very useful if, like me, you make your own compost. You can really load a shovel, in a way that you simply cannot with a spade. Great for compost, leaf mould, for mulching, and shifting gravel. We have a lot of gravel pathways and a gravel driveway that all need the occasional redress. I also mulch a lot!

Perennial Spade | Long-handle Trowel | Hand Fork | Daisy Grubber | Trowel

Number 6: Hand Trowel

The long-handled hand trowel is a favourite. It gives you extra reach and very useful leverage. I use it for planting larger seedlings, 9cm potted plants, etc. I’ve had this for years. And, by comparison, I’ve snapped two regular hand trowels over the same period. It’s particularly useful for planting in densely-planted borders.

I’ve recently received a copper trowel as a present. (Yes, I am spoiled.) I was slightly dubious about copper (technically bronze), but I now love it and use it all the time. It’s exceptionally light and nicely balanced. It has a thinner profile and sharper edge, so it’s excellent for slicing perennial weed roots deep under the surface.

Number 7: Long-handle Bulb planter

Our garden is approximately 1/3acre and I love spring bulbs! Some years I plant hundreds in the borders and the most efficient tool is this! I’ve tried dibbers and the small springy bulb planters but they’re very tough on your wrists, and no way near as efficient.

This is much easier, allowing you to stand tall and use your body weight to cut holes in firm ground. If you have a small plot and light friable soil then maybe a dibber or little bulb planter would suffice. But for lawns and expansive planting (more than a few dozen bulbs) then the long-handled bulb planter is definitely the way to go.

Although I prefer the wider T-grip, I found the join for the T-handle on my Burgon & Ball model too weak. I put in two screws to stop it wobbling and that’s done the trick. It’s probably the weak point in most of these wooden-handled models. Heavy-duty, all-metal bulb planters with steel T-handles are available.

Number 8: Wheelbarrow

Yes, the barrow is essential here! Admittedly, I took some convincing at first. Honestly, I laughed (to myself) when my in-laws bought it for my birthday years ago. I had only just started dabbling in gardening and I thought “What the hell am I going to need that for?!” A decade later and I use it almost every day! And bought a second, bright orange barrow, so I can always spot in the garden.

Loading up with prunings to dump on the compost heap or barrowing tonnes of mulch around. Making batches of my spring bulb potting mix. Transporting plants, pots and planters, compost, gravel, tools around the garden. You may prefer a two-wheeled barrow, or a cart. But a barrow of any kind is a really useful addition to your gardening toolkit!

Number 9: Garden Rakes

I have two rakes. A leaf rake with flexible plastic tines which is only used in autumn on my mini-lawn. I also have a metal soil rake, a really great investment, for year round use. This rake is used for pushing gravel around the driveway and paths, as well as spreading mulch on my raised vegetable beds and borders.

I also use this soil rake for weeding in my (cropping) raised beds. If there’s a rash of weed seedlings, either blown in on the wind, or from the garden compost, I can run the rake through over them on a sunny day and they perish on the surface - a great tip from

Charles Dowding

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Copper Trowel | Daisy Grubber | Hand Fork

Number 10: Daisy Grubber

One of the very best weeding tools that I’ve found so far. For any perennial weeds like dandelion, bindweed, ground elder, young docks and thistles, I found the daisy grubber to be very effective without excessively disturbing the soil. Its thin blade and sharp edge allows you to sink the tool several inches below the surface (even in gravel) and either prize-up or sever tap roots.

Number 11: Dibber

My dibber is now an essential tool. It’s a wooden long-handled dibber, fashioned from a spade handle. The tip is just rounded with a file and smoothed-off with sand paper. It’s the design that I saw Charles Dowding use and subsequently found they’ve been around for a very long time. Honestly, they are genius!

I can reach the middle of my raised beds with ease, using it to punch holes in the compost and draw shallow furrows for direct sowing or to mark out rows on the beds. You can also mark measurements on the shaft for common plant spacings or gauging planting depths. It’s also the perfect size if you use 40-60 cell module trays for your veg seedlings.

Number 12: Watering Can

I have several now. I’ve tried several more. I went for posh ‘galvanised’ cans that were in fact only nickel-plated or something. They rusted inside and are no longer with us. Serves me right! My two plastic cans, that I bought years and years ago are still perfectly serviceable, with a couple of roses for varying flow.

(The ‘rose’ is the nozzle attachment controlling the flow, ranging from fine to coarse)

I have just invested in a Haws watering can. British racing green and gorgeous - if it’s possible to label a can as such! It has an extra-long spout and was bought mainly for feeding the terrific number of pots and planters in the Courtyard and on the Terrace. There are so many, I couldn’t reach the ones at the back without performing a miracle of balance in a demi-pointe pirouette (or warrior pose for you yogis).

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Now we’re venturing into the USEFUL BUT NOT ESSENTIAL category…

Hori Hori

The Hori Hori (Japanese for dig dig) is a very handy multipurpose tool. Sharp on one edge for weeding or opening bags, etc. Some are serrated and resemble a hunting knife! Slight overkill. They have a strong straight blade for making small precision holes in soil and compost, ideal for planting plugs, bulbs, or potatoes. I use it mainly for weeding as it slides into a holster that I keep on a belt, so I’ve always got it with me when I spot a weed!

Wrecking Bar

The invaluable but utterly bonkers addition to my gardening toolkit and it almost makes it into my essential list! Yes really!! It’s basically an oversized monster crowbar with a chisel like blade one end and the traditional crowbar end for leverage. It is extremely heavy duty!!!

I found that in some areas of my garden there’s a layer of heavily-compacted soil and rubble 20-30cm below the surface. So, I if I encounter this layer when planting, I use this bar to break-up the base of the planting hole. The weight of it, coupled with the chisel blade, means I can just drop it repeatedly, without too much effort, and the tool does the rest.

The wrecking bar is also incredibly handy when I find lumps of concrete and brick buried in the earth. You’d easily bend the tines of your fork or snap the shaft of your spade, but this bar is just awesome!

Digging and Border Fork

Yes! Relegated to occasional use only!! Useful, but not essential in this garden. Controversial, I know! The fork just seems to be one of those tools that gardeners see as a ‘must have’ or told that it’s an essential buy. Before no-dig, my fork saw lots of use, but these days it’s only real use now is for when I’m lifting and transplanting.

Hoe

With no dig and mulching, weeding is becoming far, far less demanding. Previous to no-dig, I used my Dutch hoe throughout the growing season. Running the blade just below the soil surface to sever and dislodge annual weeds. The narrow blade is ideal for reaching in between rows of veg or in between established plants, where the rake is too wide and unwieldy. But weeding is now so minimal, the hoe rarely leaves the tool rack - I may have used it twice last year.

Snips

I have a pair of lightweight Niwaki snips. They’re relatively inexpensive, lightweight and comfortable. The red handles are easy to find if you drop them. The slender blades are just perfect for snipping off faded flowers, even on something as floriferous as cosmos and lavender. I also use them for harvesting various vegetables like tomatoes, peas and beans. Again, good sharp blades and very easy to maintain.

Pruning Saw

I have three saws: a chainsaw, reciprocating saw, and pruning saw. The chainsaw was essential early on as there were so many dead and diseased trees here, along with gnarly old brambles and privets. But, now everything is maintained and manageable, I rarely use it.

The Ryobi One+ Reciprocating Saw and a manual pruning saw have been very useful for lopping branches and I’ve used both when lifting crowns and reshaping or rejuvenating mature trees and large shrubs.

Scoop

Basically, a deeper trowel. Just a handy addition if you do a lot of potting and propagation. I leave my scoop in the potting shed, so it’s always there, where I need it for loading up compost, grit, perlite, etc.

Hand fork

Used mostly for light weeding in the borders and for harvesting (lifting) onions, shallots, garlic, and leeks. I just get the fork beneath the vegetables and lever them up gently, so I don’t damage the root plate on the alliums.

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So, there we have it! My gardening tools. Ultimately, choosing the right tool for you comes with experience. We’re all different, whether it’s hand size, arm length, height, strength, leverages, etc. What are your favourites? Do you name any of yours? Spadey McSpade-Face? I’d love to hear!

Happy Shopping… ahem, sorry! Happy Gardening!

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Coming up…

If, like me, you don’t have the luxury of a greenhouse and you struggle to sow seeds early, then I think you’re really going to enjoy this next piece. I’m going to share with you how I built my temporary propagation station - a simple build that enables me to get a head start on sowing all my crops and ornamentals.