Garden Must Haves

nickcc

Bought my Wife a pair of Bosch secateurs, these are power assisted and are a godsend as she suffers with arthritis but really enjoys gardening. For me a Worx battery lawn mower as I got fed up with tripping over cables, also bought a battery Vacuum cleaner for the same reason but of course not for the garden.

robatwork

-taff wrote: »

heavy duty adze [brilliant for digging out bushes]

Not just for bushes but very handy for Words with Friends.

Primrose

Must haves:

My kneeler stool
Supply of thin rubber gloves (find ordinary garden gloves too cumbersome)
Several trowels ( they always go awol as I forget where I've left them!
My mini plastic greenhouse (strapped to house wall for stability)

And of course my favourite comfortable old gardening clothes!

malebolge

My best buy long term has to be the second hand greenhouse we bought when we moved into the house 30 years ago. £10, buyer collects. Still going strong. Also, the tons and tons of broken paving stones we got for a song from the council at the same time - we had the house built as here was a lot of land at the back, but it was sloping and had never been touched. I've really fond memories of spending the first two summers there landscaping it. No one would believe I'd moved about 50 tons of flags - my husband got all the credit.

That was when I was young & fit. Husband has passed and I'm almost wheelchair bound now. I considered moving but I love the place so much, and I'm a stubborn old goat so I'm staying put. I can walk a short distance with sticks so my next best buy is 20+ kneeler seats so I can walk a few steps and then sit. There's over 200 tubs in the garden and they mean I can sit and happily tend to them.
Worst buy - I'd have to agree on a leaf vacuum. It was a present I've never used as I can't lift it - not much strength in my right arm now as well. Ive invented a few new swear words attempting it. I do have help with the heavy jobs and my cousin has said it's a waste of time so not just my gammy mitts.

Best plant buys - got a pot of leucanthemums at a charity boot sale, along with a few hardy chrysanthemums and phlox paniculata. I must have divided them and got well over 100 plants in the last few years.

elsien

Can I also add an alternative use for a leaf blower - my local FB page has a complaint about someone who is using it to de-fluff their long haired dogs. Fur everywhere apparently.

Davesnave

malebolge wrote: »

Best plant buys - got a pot of leucanthemums at a charity boot sale, along with a few hardy chrysanthemums and phlox paniculata. I must have divided them and got well over 100 plants in the last few years.

My best plant buy in recent years was a multi-stemmed Fatsia from Homebase for £3.50.

Upon examination at home, this turned out to be 17 seperate small Fatsias stuffed into one pot. I grew-on and sold most of them, but I still have one supplying more seed (about May) by the front door. It's as tall as me now.:)

NaughtiusMaximus

Sticking with Davenave's cheap/expensive theme:

Cheap - A bulb trowel - for those who don't know it's a type of hand trowel, a similar length but only half the width and a little more pointy than a regular hand trowel. The borders in our garden have around 3-4 inches of decent topsoil with a very clay soil underneath. The bulb trowel is far more effective for digging down into the clay than a standard trowel due to it's shape.

Expensive - an Ego Self Propelled lawnmower - Not remotely MSE but I have no regrets whatsoever about splashing out on this. Last year we moved house to a property with a large back garden which features a sloping lawn. I'm not a fan of mains mowers due to the trailing cord so that leaves the option of either a petrol or cordless self propelled mower. The Ego mower was definitely at the expensive end of the market but was well worth it IMO, quiet, powerful and I can do the entire lawn including strimming the edges (at the time I bought it, Ego had a 'free' strimmer offer on all their mowers) on a single charge.