When winter slowly melts away and the first green buds of spring start to appear, everyone with a green thumb cheers. Time to break out the tools and head out into the yards for some good, hard work among the gardens. Perhaps a new design for a flower bed will be tried out, or perhaps the old designs will simply be lovingly gone over and prepared for summer. Either way, it's time to take stock of your tools and make sure you're ready for the season ahead.



If you've got enough room in your garage or potting shed to hang up all your small tools on peg-board, that is the ideal solution to both the storage and care problem. If metal tools are jumbled about on a cold concrete floor, they quite quickly develop rust, get mislaid, or might even get stepped on by a careless foot.

If you're a long time gardener, you've probably got all the tools you need already, so it's just a question of examining each one and ensuring that it is still in working order, to see if any blades need sharpening or handles need repairing. If you purchased high quality tools to begin with chances are the only thing that needs doing is sharpening blades. You can do this yourself with the proper tools, and as long as you exercise the proper care around sharp objects!

If you're just starting your gardening career, then you need to stock up on the appropriate tools. You'll have a choice between purchasing inexpensive tools - which are generally of low quality - or expensive tools - which are generally of high quality. Of course these days expense is relative, what with the improvements in manufacturing techniques, not to mention the place where the tools were manufactured, and you should be able to get good quality tools for not very much money.

It's just a question of how many tools you want to buy. The best thing to do is start out with just the bare minimum, then, as you work in your garden and decide you love it, you can return to the store for more tools - for there is a specialty tool for every purpose - and buy more.

Depending on the size of your lawn, there's no need to buy huge pieces of equipment such as garden rollers or roto-tillers. Those you can rent from your local garden or hardware store. A lawnmower is generally the only big piece of equipment you'll need.

Small tools

Forks

If you've got flower beds, you'll need a hand fork, and perhaps even a cultivator. These are small hand tools with three prongs so that you can get in amongst the flowers and weed out the unwanted grasses. Indeed, you can purchase forks in a set: cultivator, hand fork, trowel, and weeding fork.

Garden hoses

How long of a hose do you need? Well, that depends on the size of your lawn. Do you have a water hookup in both front and back, or just on the side of the house?

Regardless of how long your hose is, storage always seems to be a problem because if you just curl the thing up and toss it into the corner of the garage, it has a habit of uncurling. If you leave it lying about any old way on your lawn, it kills the grass beneath. The solution is a rack or wheel onto which you can roll the hose, and then unroll it when needed. For such a tool - you should get the best possible, something that you can mount on the house. Wheels that sit on the floor have a habit of tilting on you when you're trying to reel in the hose, and just get frustrating.

Gloves

You perhaps don't think of gloves as a 'tool,' but they are - designed to prevent blisters on your hands, or cuts from rose bushes, or the like. Many people like to stick their hands in the dirt - that's the joy of gardening! - but such activities are very hard on your nails, and on your skin, and a good pair of gloves will save you from a lot of problems in future.

Hand shears/clippers

If you've got bushes or shrubs in your yard, a pair of hand shears or hedge clippers is a much. At the very least you'll want to clip off any inconvenient twigs that reach out and snag your clothing as you walk past, but you can also use the shears to shape and beautify the greenery.

If you've got trees with overhanging branches, than lopping shears might become necessary. Because they've got very long handles they allow you to get a lot of leverage in cutting off branches, and any dead branches on your tree should be cut off.

Rakes

Should you get a cheap rake with plastic teeth...or should you get a rake with metal teeth. Frankly, one metal rake will last as long as two or three plastic ones, so your much better just getting the metal rake to begin with. Even if you don't have trees that drop their leaves in the fall, a rake is always handy to smooth dirt, or remove thatch from your lawn.

Spades

Shovels are used for shifting snow, spades are used for shifting dirt in a garden. There are a wide variety of spades on the market, each to be used for a different purpose. Spades with a pointed blade are used to dig up clumps of earth, while the spade with a square blade is used for removing that dirt. When purchasing spades, make sure you get ones with a handle suited to your height.

Wheelbarrows

If you've got room to store a wheelbarrow, and if you're going to be adding or moving dirt or plants or other material, then this tool will certainly come in handy. But if you simply need to maintain your lawns, you probably won't need a wheelbarrow at all.