Owning a home comes with many responsibilities. The most enjoyable is perhaps beautifying your property. Even if you don’t plan to create complicated landscapes, your shrubs need pruning and your yard requires weeding and maintenance.
So, where do you start? With the right tools for the job. Here are some essential gardening supplies for new homeowners.
Gardening auger
First on your list of essential gardening supplies should be a gardening auger. From planting annuals to digging post holes, a gardening auger offers speed and safety. They come in various sizes to suit all needs — and can help make your new home and garden a stunning success.
Gloves
While gloves are not a gardening requirement, they keep your hands clean, dry, and callous-free. They’re also useful when you’re pruning thorny plants — such as rose bushes or brambles — and can prevent splinters when you trim trees or remove dead limbs. For light- and medium-duty gardening jobs, consider lightweight, durable gloves with soft cotton lining. For heavy-duty projects like planting trees or digging trenches, thick leather gloves are best.
Pruning shears
If your yard has trees and shrubs, pruning shears will come in handy for branch removal. Used mostly in spring and fall to trim and shape shrubs and smaller trees, pruning shears are also perfect for removing broken branches after damaging storms.
Garden scissors
Don’t overlook the versatility of garden scissors. Perfect for deadheading flowers and trimming back perennials in the fall, garden scissors are heavier duty versions of standard kitchen scissors and have springs. You can also use them to prune indoor plants, cut seed packets, harvest fruits and vegetables, and much more — all while exerting less force. Though you may think pruning shears will work for these jobs, they’re actually better for cutting small, woody branches as softer foliage and stems often bind in their jaws.
Garden Hoe
Garden hoes are any handheld tool with a bladed perpendicular end for attacking soil, making them vital for cultivating soil and removing pesky weeds. Depending on your needs, you can use a variety of hoe types to tackle gardening issues — from the basic draw (or paddle) hoe with a rectangular digging blade to more specialized tools like stirrup hoes with U-shaped blades attached by a hinge, so blades can swivel freely from the handle.
Rake
With many types of rakes on the market, it’s hard to know which one is best for you. To narrow your selection, think about why you need it. A regular garden rake with stiff tines and a long handle is ideal for raking mulch or smoothing a freshly turned soil bed. To pick up grass clippings or leaves, use a leaf rake with bent, flexible tines. If you need to rake within tight, hard-to-reach places or lightly rake leaves and grass off the top of bushes, a shrub rake is your best choice.
Hoses and nozzles
Watering is perhaps the most important garden maintenance task, so hoses and nozzles are important additions to your list of essential gardening supplies. Whatever your garden size or goals, you need a garden hose with an adjustable nozzle, so you can water your plants and lawn, clean your home’s siding, and spray dirt off driveways and sidewalks. Purchase a wind-up hose reel for easy storage, or buy a soaker hose to keep garden beds consistently watered. If you water lots of smaller beds or potted plants, choose in a watering wand.
Wheelbarrow
When you’re raking leaves or grass clippings, you can place them in a wheelbarrow to quickly move them to a mulch pile. Wheelbarrows also serve as large mixing vessels for batches of cement and mortar, which can be convenient for various landscape projects.
Your new home represents a new opportunity to create an outdoor oasis. Any or all of these essential gardening supplies will help you as you work hard to enhance your landscape.
After you buy these tools, the fun part begins. Find out how to put your tools to work by checking out our free e-book, “Building an Insta-worthy Garden to Elevate Your New Home’s Exterior.”
