Top 7 Essential Garden Tools
If you plan on maintaining your garden, growing beautiful plants, and keeping the weeds at bay, you’re definitely going to need these 7 tools.
1. Hose
No sense in buying those plants you saw at the garden center if you have no way to water them! A watering can or random bucket will work if you only have a few plants, but if you live in a house with an outdoor faucet you probably already have a hose anyways.
2. Spade
The spade! This is by far the tool I use the most in my gardening practice.
The spade is the pointy shovel which is good for digging holes for planting, transplanting, moving materials (soil, mulch, riverstone), and loosening the soil to make weed removal easier. If you think you can do the job without this one, you should probably bring one anyways just in case.
3. Wheelbarrow
A wheelbarrow is essential for moving materials and heavy plants to different areas in your garden.
Spend a little more here if you’re planning on doing any big projects. My little one-wheel wheelbarrow broke on the first day of spring planting a few years ago, so I went to Canadian Tire and got a nice two-wheel wheelbarrow which can take a way bigger load.
4. Shovel
Where the spade is the best tool for digging, a square shovel is the best tool for scooping materials off of a flat surface (driveway, porch, pavers).
If you live somewhere where it snows you probably have a snow shovel which is also great for scooping mulch and lighter materials. Heavier materials like soil and rock will need a smaller metal shovel.
5. Rake
A rake is good for pilling up leaves and sticks to be removed and spreading piles of mulch or soil around.
6. Broom
If you’re working anywhere near a porch, driveway, or pavers, you’re going to need a broom to sweep off the dirt and keep your garden looking proper.
I like to sweep once before putting down mulch so that the sand and dirt ends up under the mulch, then sweep again after to touch up the mulch
7. Gloves
When you’re working in the garden, your hands are gonna get dirty. You can also hurt yourself! Be sure to wear gloves and any other safety equipment you may need for the job (safety glasses, hearing protection, hard hat).
Top 7 non-essential Garden Tools
These are my runner-ups that are really useful to me in my garden practice but I just don’t consider them absolutely essential.
- pruners – for pruning and trimming trees and bushes
- edger – for making those CRISPY garden edges
- tarp – for keeping the site clean
- hand spade – for planting smaller flowers and veggies in raised garden beds.
- bucket – for carrying around small amounts of materials or weeds.
- hoe – for removing weeds and soil
- truck or trailer – for moving very large amounts of material
