Essential Gardening Tool Names

1. Secateurs

A pair of secateurs is a must-have in your gardening hand tool set. This hand-operated cutting tool serves many uses, from deadheading roses to trimming back wayward branches of up to ¾ of an inch thick.

Secateurs come in two varieties: Bypass (used to prune live plants) and Anvil (suitable for deadheading). They’re a great gardening tool to keep your garden neat and tidy, as well as for seasonal pruning to encourage future growth.

2. Garden Trowel

A garden trowel is a versatile gardening tool you can use to dig flower beds or prepare soil for potting. It has a short handle, affixed to a metal scoop, and its size makes it ideal for precision tasks.

3. Gardening Fork

Gardening forks (sometimes called spading forks or digging forks) are designed to help you loosen, lift, and turn over soil.

The most common gardening forks are equipped with a long handle and four prongs, which help you to penetrate the soil using your body weight as leverage. They’re a handy tool for digging borders and breaking up clumps of hardened earth.

4. Weeder

Weeding tools help you to keep unwanted weeds at bay in your garden. As with other essential gardening tools, weeders come in a few varieties. The most popular of these is the Claw Cultivator, which has an appearance similar to a curved hand fork. These are ideal for hand-raking the topsoil layer.

The second weeder we recommend is the Dandelion Weeder. This one is perfect if you need to weed in concentrated areas of planting as it penetrates straight down, giving you a greater degree of accuracy and control when weeding.

5. Hand Shovel

A hand shovel (also known as a garden spade or a hand trowel) is a small handheld tool that’s used for turning over soil or digging small holes for bulbs to drop into. Once the bulb is in place you can then use the hand shovel to distribute the dirt back into the hole and then gently pat it down.

6. Pruning Tools

We’ve already talked about secateurs, but there are many other types of pruning tool that can help you to maintain bushes, shrubs, and trees in your garden. One of the most useful for tackling longer branches is a pruning saw, which looks similar to a curved, serrated, knife.

Another good-to-have pruning tool – particularly for cutting smaller branches – is a pruning knife, which features a distinctive billhook blade.

7. Garden Rake

If you have trees overlooking your garden or vegetable patch a garden rake is a must-have. Rakes help you to gather up leaves and other fallen branches, ready to scoop into your garden waste bin or composter. They’re also handy for creating lines in soil, levelling out uneven earth, and helping to break-up clumps of dirt.

8. Lawn Edger

If you’re particular about your lawn looking neat and angular on all sides, a lawn edger will help you to achieve clean and distinctive lines that appear visually appealing while creating a clear distinction between your lawn and beds.

9. Kneelers

Kneelers are a great way to relieve the pressure on your knees when you’re doing ground-level work like weeding and potting.

They’re a portable foam layer you can carry around with you (or attach individually to your knees), usually covered in a non-absorbent material to offer protection from damp.

10. Wheelbarrow

Wheelbarrows, like those you find on construction sites, are great for helping you to move heavy loads. You’ll find single wheel and dual wheel styles available, as well as single handled varieties.

Two wheeled wheelbarrows offer better weight distribution and stability and are easier to manoeuvre over rough terrain but if you’re strong and don’t mind a bit of heavy lifting, a single wheeled wheelbarrow should do just fine. Just make sure to keep the tyres well inflated.

11. Hedge Shear

Hedge shears are a type of cutting tool designed specifically for hedge trimming, shaping, and maintenance. They have a scissor-like blade and extended handles, allowing you to reach up and down without overstretching.

12. Lopper

Loppers are a larger form of handheld cutting tool you can use to trim back unruly branches in your garden. As with secateurs, loppers come in bypass and anvil styles and their long handles (usually between 16 to 32 inches) help to achieve excellent leverage when it comes to tackling thick branches in hard-to-reach places.

13. Lawn Mower

If you need to trim a lawn look no further than a lawn mower. You’ll find many different types of lawn mower available, from manual varieties and petrol-powered mowers to electric lawn mowers and even self-cutting lawn mowers.

If you don’t want to collect the grass trimmings from your lawn, be sure to purchase a style that collects the clippings as the lawn is being cut. You can then simply empty the cuttings into your garden waste bin or a composter.

14. Chainsaw

Chainsaws are the perfect tool for tackling large branches or removing trees from your garden.

This powerful saw uses teeth attached to a rotating chain to make rough cuts into wood, making it possible to saw through thick and heavy branches with relative ease as well as reducing an entire tree to just a stump.

15. Leaf Blower

A leaf blower is a handheld gardening power tool designed to help you to quickly clear up fallen leaves from your garden, decking, or driveway.

The blower emits a strong current that you can use to direct the leaves into a pile, making it easier to gather them up.

16. Electric Hedge Shear

An electric hedge shear, commonly known as a hedge trimmer, is a power tool designed for landscaping and manicuring hedges.

They feature an elongated toothed blade that makes light work of cutting through hedge branches and are the perfect tool to use if you want to create curved hedges without taking too much time over it.

17. Tiller

A tiller (short for rototiller) is a tool for breaking up dense and compacted soil. They’re equipped with a set of rotating blades that turn the earth while raking through it.

Tillers come in two types: front-tine and rear-tine. Rear-tine tillers perform better in very hard ground over a larger area, while front-tine tillers are ideal for smaller spaces where the ground isn’t as compacted.

18. Lawn Aerator

A lawn aerator is a professional gardening tool that can help you to transform tired-looking and patchy lawns.

This ingenious gadget breathes new life into lawns by improving drainage and stimulating root growth. They’re even effective if your lawn is seeded in clay soil.

19. Garden Hose and Spray Gun

A garden hose and spray gun are the perfect combination to help you to water your flower beds, lawn, and vegetable patches. Hoses come in different lengths so be sure to choose one that’s long enough to reach all of your garden once attached to the water supply. You can also invest in a watering lance if you need your hose to stretch just that bit further, or you have hanging baskets to water.

If you don’t want to manually water your garden, a sprinkler attachment for your hose will automatically distribute water by spraying it overhead. Just move it around every so often to ensure the whole of the garden gets watered.

You’ll also need to invest in a hose connector to attach your hose to your outdoor tap and, if you don’t want to deal with any knots or kinks, we’d also recommend a hose reel cart, which will help you to easily store your hose and wind it back in after use.