Garden Tools

Garden tools that make everything grow better
Nature causes things to grow, but a gardener still needs the right garden tools to achieve the best growth possible. Over the last few decades, numerous tools have appeared on the market to make the home or industrial gardener’s job easier, faster and more efficient.

Lawn and garden tools are essentially divided into hand tools and power tools.

Hand gardening tools
These types of tools are among the earliest inventions used by humans. While the tools’ shapes and effectiveness have changed, the principles behind the implements remain the same. Hand gardening tools include spades, hoes, pitchforks, garden forks, garden rakes and the plow. While today a plow is considered a power garden tool, early plows were horse-driven, and many Amish folks still plow their fields this way.

Some gardeners enjoy using hand garden tools because they feel it keeps them in touch with nature, and they like seeing the "work of their hands" in their lawns and gardens. Tools for more extensive gardening work use gas or electric power to make the gardener’s job easier.

Power garden tools
Gas-powered lawn mowers were among the first power garden tools, replacing push mowers and allowing property owners to create a more uniform appearance to their lawns with much less effort.

String trimmers are handy gardening tools that use a flexible monofilament line to cut through weeds and tall grass and to make nice edgings around sidewalks and bricks. These versatile power garden tools can run on either gasoline or electricity. Weedeater and Weedwhacker are two common brand names.

Lawn and garden tools such as trimmers and electric pruners make quick work of shaping hedges, compared with the time and effort required with hand-held pruning shears. Using a scissor effect, two rows of electric-powered teeth slide against one another and easily cut through leaves, twigs and thinner branches.

Rounding out the collection of the more common power tools for gardening are leaf blowers, which greatly reduce the time spent clearing leaves, loose brush and debris from lawns, sidewalks and sections of a property that are difficult to access. Leaf blowers are either electric- or gas-powered and can be hand-held or mounted on the gardener like a backpack.

Both gas-powered and electric garden tools are widely popular, but in many areas the trend is toward the electric variety. Some people prefer power garden tools that run on electricity instead of gasoline because they are more environmentally friendly – not to mention cheaper and more convenient to operate. In almost every instance, you can find an electric garden tool that performs the same task as a gas-powered garden tool.

When deciding which gardening tools are best for the job at hand, go to the source for answers. Most hardware stores and gardening supply centers not only sell the tools you need but can also explain the advantages and operation of each device.

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