When I was a kid, I wanted to work in a hardware store. There was something irresistible about the beehive-like rows of even-size bins containing screws and nails sorted and graded by size and use. I was also taken with the walls of tools - shovels, rakes, and hoes of every description in stacks of a dozen or more. Though at the time I wanted to be a bulldozer operator, it is these smaller tools of the trade that I most often employ today. Most of my earthmoving endeavors involve trowels, my favorite tools. My preferred trowel is sold by A.M. Leonard Tool Supply as simply a "nursery trowel." This solid, indestructible instrument has a forged blade and a hardwood handle. At just under a pound in weight, this trowel is a lifetime investment. The broad blade is ideal for excavating wide planting holes for containerized and bareroot perennials and is nearly impossible to bend, even when working around rocks and roots. Inexpensive trowels just do not hold up to such abuse. I used to go through half a dozen in a season, each bent into a unique shape or snapped in two by a pesky rock or intractable clay. Then I found my first nursery trowel. I still have it after 12 years. A close second is a new gadget a friend got for me at a local nursery. It looks like a cross between a trowel and a bulb planter, with a keeled and pointed, 10-inch, razor-sharp, stainless-steal blade marked off in inches and centimeters. The entire tool is one piece, with a plastic grip over the handle. It's called an All Pro No. 202, made by W. H. Cox. This tool doubles for digging and weeding - it cuts through roots and digs deeper than a conventional trowel. The long, slender blade works equally well for planting bulbs, eliminating the need for the addition of a bulb planter to your toolshed. A third trowel every gardener should have is a small, lightweight tool for small jobs and working in tight spaces. I won mine - aluminum with a plastic grip - as a door prize at a Rock Garden Society meeting. It is great for working among rocks where precision is a must, and is so lightweight it will never give me carpal-tunnel syndrome. I also value the small blade when planting seedlings. I am a lazy gardener, and a lazy shopkeeper as well. I got over my obsession with order fairly early. At the end of the day, trowels, pruners, and grass clippers go into a bucket. I know I should clean my tools after each use, but I don't. Who has the time? There are people who have a barrel filled with motor oil and builder's sand to scour off tools and instantly cure them after every use, but I am not one of them. I scrape my blades clean with my finger, while the soil is still moist. At the end of the season, I wash everything down with the hose, and scrub off stubborn clumps with a wire brush. If the tools are rusted, I hit them with a shot of WD-40. By December, gardening tools hang clean on their nails in the garage, set aside with the end of the growing season - just in time to pick up the snow shovel and the icebreaker.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm Bruce O. Pratt, who thoroughly enjoys researching about Power & Hand Tools. I hope my reviews can help you to choose the right products fit with your needs. Archives
November 2017
Categories |