Essential Garden Tool Guide for Beginners

Essential Garden Tool Guide for Beginners

. 5 min read

Knowing how to use the right tools is one of the most important parts of gardening. If you don't have the tools, garden work is hard to complete. It is, therefore, important to know what tools to use while working tending to your garden.

The current range of garden tools is truly amazing. You're going to find everything you need. But we will focus now on the top 15 useful types of gardening tools to make gardening easier for any beginner and experienced gardener.

Basic Gardening Tools

Here's what every beginner gardener needs:

Pitchforks

This gardening device is used to loosen the ground. It is recommended that the soil be tilled using a fork instead of using a shovel. This is because it prevents you from cutting through the worms and roots of the plants.

Spades / Shovels

There are many varieties of this tool on the web — bayonets, shovels, sappers, snow shovels. Different types of shovels are designed for different tasks, you can find shovels best suited for particular soil selection in the gardens, sawdust, limestone, sand, and other materials, but a beginner will get by fine with a simple, decent quality one.

The serious gardener needs at least two kinds of trowels. The Bayonet Trowel is the most popular since it is multi-purpose. It can help with digging fields, cutting large weeds and undergrowth, digging and loosening bushes and trees, and digging ripened vegetables out of the ground.

It can be said that a shovel is used most during the summer season. It is possible to have at least two small, lightweight bayonet spades/ hand trowels and at least one heavier bayonet spade.

Rakes

This device is essential for soil grazing, garbage collection— removing leaves, and grass cutting. Rakes have two styles of teeth one is smooth and flexible. The rough-styled rake is used to loosen and break up lumps of dry soil. Flexible teeth rakes must be washed of leaves, grass clippings, etc.

Trowel

A garden trowel is a small hand tool used for digging, smoothing, or moving small amounts of soil. They greatly simplify the process of planting. A small blade is ideal for opening the dirt or tilling the soil so it is at the desired level.  

There are also some trowels specially designed for cutting roots. If you are planting many plants or planting on hard ground you can use a spiral drill for easy plantation, but even then, you will still want a basic trowel to hand

Hoe

Weeding and soiling are routine exercises for gardeners in the treatment of old plants. To do this type of work, a standard hoe will be all the support you will need. This is not a wide tool, so it's ideal for weeding plants and loosening soils in fields, flower gardens, and flower beds.

Organic Straw Sunhat

I recommend that the skin be protected from harmful UV light for gardeners who have to work in the hot summer Australian sun. Failure to use sunscreen can result in problems with early signs of serious skin disorders. There is also another important addition that not only protects the skin but also keeps you cooler.

It's not going to come to mind for some, I'm pretty sure. Today, the correct use of a straw sunhat as a gardening tool is all but forgotten. However, they're a perfect defense. I'm sure straw sunhats will return to their rightful place in the garden, especially the more fashionable models.

Watering Can

It can be used for watering your Canberra Bells and irrigation of soils and fertilizers. Watering cans are only used to apply targeted ad-hoc irrigation to small areas. Their main benefit is in size and convenience.

Garden Hose / Irrigation System

It's hard to imagine a garden without a garden hose. Regular watering, whether grass, vegetables, or flowers, is important.

It's difficult to find the time for manual watering, and worthwhile considering sprinklers or an irrigation system; loading and water pressure should be taken into consideration.

Gardening Scissors

This garden tool is equipped with long, sharp blades and is very convenient to cut small shoots. It is also ideal for cutting hedges of heath, heart leaves, mint bushes, etc.

Garden Hacksaw

Makes a clean and tidy cut without damaging the tree at the same time, unlike conventional hacksaws. A small folding hacksaw and a large one can be recommended for novice gardeners.

Hand Pruner / Shrub Shears / Secateurs

Hand Pruners are used for the cutting of bushes and thick branches of young trees. Once you have chosen the type of garden work you want to do, use a secateurs tool with rubberized handles to protect your hands from blisters. Secateurs/pruners should sit comfortably if used side-on.

Long-handled Shears/lopper

This is a garden tool for cutting branches that are inaccessible to traditional prunes, for example, in the middle of the bush and when dealing with thorny shrubs.

A lopper system is mounted on a long pole, loppers can cut thick branches of plants without much effort since it is fitted with a hinged-lever frame. The efficiency of the operation depends on the thickness of the branches.

Seed sowing dispenser

Seed dispensers are used for manual planting of seeds for the rapid and qualitative introduction of seeds into soil beds or other planting purposes. The sowing design allows seeds of varying sizes (carrots, parsley, peas) to be planted at the same time.

Power Tools

Hedge Trimmer / Shrub Shear

If you have a lot of hedges, then this lightweight tool's design will help you to maintain your bushes. You can rough-cut a general shape with an electric or petrol hedge trimmer and do detailed work with your hand shears.

Cheaper electric trimmers tend to be underpowered and dull, so I would buy something top-notch with plenty of power.

Whipper Snipper

Useful for edges and very long grass where the mower can't efficiently trim the area. In Australia, line trimmers are commonly known as whipper snippers. With our detailed advice, it should be easy for you to find the whipper snipper that is best for your needs.

Lawnmower

Cordless or corded electric lawnmowers are convenient tools for taking care of lawns under different conditions in small and medium-sized areas. Electric mowers have also become popular due to how compact and lightweight they are, and because they can be used in a variety of fields without damaging the environment and human health.

Modern Cordless lawnmowers have a decent power output, comparable to petrol lawnmowers as well as a small number of parts and tools required. Because this type of device is simple, you don't have to spend a lot of effort maintaining it. Of course, the batteries won't last forever.

Even some professional lawn mowing services are now using battery-powered lawn mowers instead of petrol ones, at least for some clients. Of course, they are unlikely to be used for professional acreage mowing even though there are a few ride-on mowers that are now battery-powered, those are targeted at the home user market.

Safety

After discovering what tools you need, you can begin to study the instructions on how to use them properly. It is very important, as it will help you to understand the specifics of the use of each device and give you a detailed description of its operation. The manual also indicates possible problems and ways of their elimination.



Table Of Contents

Mark Thompson

Mark is an Australian Agronomist and a father of two beautiful girls. He enjoys writing about garden design, landscape architecture, DIY, tools, and related topics.

About expertEasy

Live in Australia? Whether you need your lawn mowed, your garden landscaped, your home painted, or you need a photographer, expertEasy is the easy way to find expert help.

Find the right expert