Horticulture & Gardening Tools #101315

Garden tools are highly useful mechanical devices that helps perform cultivation, digging, cutting and other operations. The garden tools facilitate landscaping and maintaining the garden.

Garden fork is an implement that has many prongs and is used for raising, carrying, piercing, or digging. The fork is mostly made of iron or steel. However stainless steel is always preferred since it combines beauty and strength. The fork has cushioned grip which adds ease while working.It has a long metal shaft above the blade, which allows maximum leverage, when trying to dig deep to remove a rock from the garden bed. The handle of the fork is D shaped that lends greater comfort and more control.

Garden tool set means many products (tools) in one. Garden tool set holds the same importance for a gardener as a sports-kit holds for a cricketer. It is basically a collection of various small and medium sized gardening tools. Garden trowel, pruner, shovel, knee-pads, cultivator, edging knife, hoes, shear, and saw constitute the primary tools that are available in a garden tool set or garden tool kit.

Like any other product, garden tools are also available in several varieties. The difference between these varieties lies in the number and type of tools that are present in the tool set. The contemporary garden tools are ergonomically designed to make them more user-friendly. Garden tool kits are equally important for a novice as they are for a professional gardener.

Before purchasing a garden tool set, one should take into consideration the type of tools that it contains. Some tool kits might be containing unwanted or insignificant tools; it means that it might be containing some tools that are not necessary for your gardening needs. Also, other tool sets might be missing some tools that you require very much. So, self discretion should be applied while purchasing it. But, one thing is sure that garden tool set provides an easy solution for your day to day garden maintenance requirements.

Shears are among the mostly used tools for gardening. This implement cuts with a scissor like action. Shears are mainly meant for trimming and maintaining the hedges. However, they are also found ideal for cutting joints. Similar to a pair of scissors, garden shears are ideal for almost any type of truncating activity in the garden.

A typical garden shear usually possesses a pair of stainless steel serrated blades that intersect each other and are joined by a bolt. Made of durable stainless steel blades, shears have handles with comfortable and perfect grip. The handles are made of same material as that of blade, but are coated with brightly colored plastic. Plastic coated handles lend ease and comfort even in case of prolonged use.

Garden shears are basically of three types, viz., pruning shears, hedge shears, and lopping shears. The functioning of these shears is perfectly in accordance with their names. The pruning shear is basically used for performing pruning or cutting activity on plants and trees; hedge shears are used for shaping the hedges and bushes, and the lopping shears are used for cutting unwanted stems and branches. The pruning and lopping types may seem alike in functionality, but the major difference between the two varieties is that, while the pruning shears are used for trimming thin stems, the lopping shear is employed for pruning thick stems.

A garden pruner is a tool used to cut off or remove dead or living parts or branches of the plant. A pruner therefore helps to improve shape or growth of a plant. But, if care is not taken, a pruner may also put harmful effect on the plant's health. Thus, in case any diseased part of a plant is to be removed through a pruner, the blades of the pruner should be disinfected before using them on some other healthy plant.

A pruner is fashioned with narrow, pointed cutting blades. It has hardened bolt and nut which ensures that both the cutting blades are well-adjusted. Rubber cushion and shock absorbers provides smooth, comfortable working and soft closing.

There are basically two primary types of pruners available at present, viz., pruner with bypass blades and pruner with anvil blades. Both these pruners serve almost the same purpose, but differ in functioning. In the former one (i.e., bypass blade pruner), the blades move across each other to make a sharp and clean cut; while in the case of the latter (i.e., anvil blade pruner) a thin sharp blade is pressed onto a flat and static blade.