The heads of these spades will usually be made with stainless steel or carbon steel. The shafts and handles will be made from either wood or some form of fibre glass.A spade is used primarily to dig or loosen ground, or to break up lumps in the soil. It is best used with a fork for this purpose.<\/p>\n Like the humble spade , almost every gardener that we know will have at least one fork in their shed. Experienced gardeners will usually have at least a couple of these. The most common of these is the garden fork.<\/p>\n There are however different types of forks and we have listed those below:<\/p>\n The forks (tines) of these will usually be made with stainless steel or carbon steel. The shafts and handles will be made from either wood or some form of fibre glass.The most popular garden and border forks, sometimes called graips are used for loosening, lifting and turning over soil in gardening and farming. They can also be used in borders, flower beds and vegetable gardening to loosed the soil and weed removal.<\/p>\n This used to be a very common gardening tool, but they have declined a little in popularity. A hoe is used to shape and clear soil and also to remove weeds. You will often here these referred to as Dutch hoes.<\/p>\n There are however different types of forks and we have listed those below:<\/p>\n Hoes will almost always have a steel blade and a simple wooden handle. That makes them ideal for weeding in tight areas and restricted spaces. The long handle helps easily get into the soil without you having to bend over.<\/p>\n There are two types of garden rake and both of them are really useful to have. These are:<\/p>\n Lawn Rake<\/strong><\/p>\n Garden Rake<\/strong><\/p>\n Both can be useful to own. For smaller lawns you can more than likely use a garden rake instead of having to buy a lawn rake, as long as you are gentle when using it.<\/p>\n The lawn rake has a wider head with flexible prongs that are still quite stiff, but do bend slightly. That allows you to capture leaves without damaging your lawn<\/p>\n The garden rake as you can see usually has around 12 stiff and rigid prongs, that allow you to slightly dig into soil to rake and level it out.<\/p>\n Those are the basic set of gardening hand tools that most gardeners will use. There are many other hand tools available of course, that allow gardeners to do various hardening tasks.<\/p>\n These are simply smaller versions of the spade and fork. Primarily these are used for planting and weeding, and almost every gardener I know will have at least one set of these in their shed.<\/p>\n Hand fork<\/strong><\/p>\n Hand spade<\/strong><\/p>\n These are normally sold as a set of two, and you usually get better value when buying these together.<\/p>\n Most of the manufacturers make these from hardened and highly polished metal, and they will either have a traditional wooden handle or a plastic covered handle.<\/p>\n The fork is used mainly for weeding and cultivating soil around plants in borders or large garden containers.<\/p>\n The trowel or spade is used mainly for planting and potting out, or gardening jobs that are too small for a full blown spade.<\/p>\n Many homeowners will be familiar with this type of hand garden shears. These can be used to trim the edges of lawns, trim hedges and also to trim bushes and shrubs.<\/p>\n They come in a standard length and you can also buy telescopic versions of these which are quite popular.<\/p>\n The key to buying these is that they must have very sharp blades, and we would also recommend that they are spring loaded as that makes them so much easier to use.<\/p>\n The best ones are made by brands such as Spear & Jackson, Draper and Fiskars.<\/p>\n Another popular hand tool is the secateurs. There are two main types:<\/p>\n When buying these you want to look out for hand comfort, the grip, that they have a safety catch, that you can buy replacement blades for them and also to be aware that these are made for left or right handed people.<\/p>\n Secateurs are a hand held tool, that is used for cutting away untidy shoots, dead heading flowers, harvesting edible crops and having the ability to precisely prune trees, shrubs and climbers.<\/p>\n Another popular hand tool is a set of loppers. You only need these if you need to do a lot of heavier duty pruning of trees, or thicker shrubs.<\/p>\n There are 2 types <\/p>\n You may have also heard of secateurs (explained above), and quite often, many buyers get confused and buy the wrong tool for their pruning needs.<\/p>\n The vast majority of garden loppers have long handles with an anvil type action that does the cutting.<\/p>\n Many loppers also have a ratchet or geared action to help do the cutting. The main use of garden loppers is to help trim and prune trees.<\/p>\n They are an ideal garden accessory for planting flower bulbs, and the better ones will have an automatic release and depth scale.<\/p>\n These help to make the job of planting bulbs simple and remove the guesswork of depth. Bulbs are an easy method of growing plants.<\/p>\n Bulbs also grow quickly and within a few weeks you can have some great looking flowers in your garden for very little effort. (Daffodils, tulips, bluebells, lilies and gladioli)<\/p>\n These simply push down into the ground and create a hole for the bulb. The planter holds the soil, until you plant the bulb, and then a release handle on the bulb planter is squeezed to release the soil.<\/p>\n Thanks for visiting our UK gardening website which is made to help any beginner gardener. Many people enjoy their garden and our tips and advice are all written to help you get the most out of your outdoor space.<\/p>\n The website team are a group of experienced gardeners who share useful information and we were all beginner gardeners at some point. Enjoy!<\/p>\n – Enda mclarnon<\/p>\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/garden-spade.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1\" "\\"garden-spade\\"")
<\/span><\/p>\nGardening Forks<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"digging](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/best-digging-fork-reviews.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1\" "\\"best")
<\/span><\/p>\nGardening Hoes<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"image](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/garden-hoe.jpg?resize=500%2C750&ssl=1\" "\\"garden")
<\/span><\/p>\nGardening Rakes<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"image](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/lawn-rake.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\" "\\"lawn")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/garden-rake.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\" "\\"garden")
<\/span><\/p>\nHand Forks and Spades<\/h2>\n
![\"image](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/hand-fork.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\" "\\"hand")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/hand-spade.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\" "\\"hand")
<\/span><\/p>\nGarden Shears<\/h2>\n
![\"lawn](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/grass-shears.jpg?resize=317%2C224&ssl=1\" "\\"grass-shears\\"")
<\/span><\/p>\nGarden Secateurs<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"secateurs](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Secateurs.jpg?resize=317%2C317&ssl=1\" "\\"Secateurs\\"")
<\/span><\/p>\nGarden Loppers<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"old](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/loppers.jpg?resize=317%2C317&ssl=1\" "\\"loppers\\"")
<\/span><\/p>\nBulb Planters<\/h2>\n
![\"bulb](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/grasstrimmerreviews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/best-bulb-planter-uk.jpg?resize=317%2C317&ssl=1\" "\\"best")
<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n