Takoma Gardener

Tools for Pruning and Making Divisions

If you're not pruning your shrubs, they undoubtedly really, really need it.  And all you really need are hand pruners, loppers, and a folding saw, for a total investment of about $150.  I'll expound elsewhere on this site about the joys of pruning but right now let's just talk tools.  And readers, send me YOUR favorites in a comment or via email.

Hand Pruners

 

One thing to know in choosing hand pruners is that they're either of the "bypass" type or the "anvil" type and everyone in the world recommends the bypass, and so do I.  I even wonder why anyone even makes and sells the other, since they're in such disrepute.  The trouble is that they crush stems unless they're kept very sharp, and who does that?

Now the important thing about using hand pruners is that they should only be used for stems ½ inch thickness or smaller.  Do NOT strain to cut something larger with hand pruners because you might damage it in the process (and strain your hand while you're at it).!

My favorite and the fave of most gardeners I know is made by Felco, specifically their #2, shown above.  They're a bit pricey (in the $60 range) but can last forever, with parts being replaced as needed.  They have a huge selection - some for left-handed people, and even "ergonomically designed" ones for the weak-handed.  Now I put myself in that category and bought a #7 model with the rotating handle that's supposedly to be more natural, but never got used to it (to be fair). In other words, it goes unused unless I can't find my #2. 

Holsters and belts for hand pruners are also available and are used by all the professional gardeners I know.  I love the macho look myself.

Loppers

Loppers are used to cut larger stems, up to 2 inches thick.  Again, don't strain to cut anything larger than that or you risk damaging the tool.

A fairly new innovation in loppers is also intended to give the weaker set more strength by using a ratcheting motion that works in stages to give maximum leverage with minmal effort. Again I've tried one and never got the hang of it, honestly. (Is it just me?  I'm not sure I want to know.)  But don't let that scare you; try it in the store and see how it feels because I've seen them demonstrated and they sure look like they work like a dream. 

Fiskars is a good brand for loppers, priced from $17 to $30. Or buy their "Pro" version with its lifetime warranty for $31-37.   Fiskars ratcheting loppers go for $172 - pricey but possibly worth it if you're lacking in strength and you can figure out how to use them.

Also highly recommended are Corona brand loppers, another good name in garden tools.  Their longer-than-usual handles offer great leverage and reach.

Folding pruning saw

For stems and branches larger than 2 inches thick, it's time for the pruning saw.  These little things don't look like much, especially in their folded condition, and only cost about 15 bucks, so people are amazed at how easily and quickly they cut!  No kidding; they're amazing and last and last and last.  All the cheap ones I've used (purchased at chain hardware stores) have worked well for me.

Pole pruner

Pole pruners up to 12 feet in length let you reach for those limbs you'd otherwise have to hire a tree care company to remove for you, and that ain't cheap.  While they can be a bit awkward to use, it sure beats getting on a ladder, any day.

Hedge Clippers/Shearers

Now for my anti-shearing rant.  Shearing shrubs into perfect, unnatural shapes and sizes is the biggest pruning mistake there is (that and not pruning at all).  Why?  Here's a short course in the reasons.

• Eventually shearing produces an almost inpenetrable exterior that prevents light, air and water from reaching the center of the shrub.  It also produces a perfect place for leaves and other debris to accumulate.  The interior of the shrub then becomes less and less vigorous, more susceptible to disease and insect infestation.

• It's awfully high-maintenance to keep perfect shapes perfect!  What's much less work is a looser, more open and natural style. Details on how to achieve this are coming soon to this very site.

The ONLY time I use hedge clippers (aka shearers) is to remove large numbers of old flower all at once - the fast deadheading method for masses of perennials or flowering shrubs.  Oh, and some conifers benefit from a light shearing and I have been known to do it to a tall cylindrical juniper.  Very little is actually being cut off - just enough to remove errant stems and stimulate some new growth at the plant's center.

Steak knives - for making divisions

Nothing beats a cheap steak knife for slicing through the roots of perennials.  I usually buy 5 for $1 at the Dollar Store every spring and at that price I don't mind that they don't stay sharp forever.

Tool Choice and Care  Information on Line

• Great article about shovels by HGTV's Paul James
• Tool care tips by Felco.
• Caring for tool handles, and how to sharpen a shovel, from  Lowes.
• Good advice on cleaning and sharpening from Fine Gardening Magazine.

And in Print

• The Tool Book by Logan is the latest favorite.
• Garden Tools and Equipment by the editors of Fine Gardening.
• Year-Round Guide to Garden Maintenance by Gordon and Mary Hayward.
• Garden Tools by a bunch of authors.
• Tools, Techniques and Tips for a Successful Garden by Dobbs and Knowles.

Shopping

• Sears Gardening Tools and Equipment - they've always had a good reputation.  As for their clothes, not so much.

Photo credits: Hand pruner by Felco, lopper by Corona, folding saw and hedge clippers from Bahco,  and pole pruner from HGPromotions.

 

Tool Talk

I've noticed there's nothing gardeners like more than talking about their tools - the ones that disappoint us and the ones we're devoted to, almost weirdly devoted to.  Don't even TALK about separating us from our favorites; it's bad enough we lose them occasionally, despite our resolutions to the contrary.  If I only had a fiver for every trowel I've lost.

But no use rehashing all those sad losses.  Today I'm showing off my faves, starting with the best trowel ever.  It's the one that's tough enough not to bend when I exert my (uncanny) strength on it.  The one that digs easily because it's pointed.  The one that doubles as a measuring stick.  Damn smart tool, and I use it even more than my beloved Felcos (#2, please.)  Doesn't it look lovely here, posed like a garden ornament?  Well, why not.

Next up, my expendables.  You've seen these gloves praised before so I won't repeat; I'm just happy to have found the four pair I just bought to replace the ones with missing fingertips.  But the steak knives are making their debut here as objects of my affection.  Best damn tool for dividing perennials I've ever found.  Liriope?  Slices through those roots like butta.  These and two others (total outlay, $2) should last me the next season.

See what optimistic, forward-looking people we gardeners are?  Planting those bulbs, laying in the supplies.  Getting ready for SPRING.

The Life and Death of a Hypertufa Pot

Everybody loves these homemade hypertufa pots, even after they've seen the sudden pot death that can result if they're made too thin (or maybe if the winter's too severe - who knows?)  Here the bowl-shaped pot second from the left, my favorite of the bunch, suddenly split open last month.  Whatever.  For something that costs about 2 bucks and looks great, I'll deal with an uncertain lifespan.  As for the other, thicker ones, they're holding on after 4 years.

And before somebody writes to ask what the hell hypertufa is, it's a mix of Portland cement, perlite and peatmoss, a formula that produces a reasonable facsimile of the stone troughs traditionally used in rural England for feeding animals - hence they're often called hypertufa troughs. The real things are scarce, heavy and expensive, thus the appeal of homemade substitutes.  The mixture is pounded inside the walls of a container, like the bucket, cooler and kitty littler container used for most of these, or on the outside of an overturned container, such as the wok top that formed the broken one here. (Click to enlarge.)  I've given workshops in making hypertufa and I gotta say it's one unholy mess.  Somehow, like making mudpies, it's also a helluva lot of fun.

For plants, I've used only succulents like sedums and hens and chicks.  These drainage-demanding plants love the natural porousness of hypertufa and I love the very low watering needs of the succulents, so everybody's happy as can be.

If there are any hypertufa-makers out there, tell us what plants have worked, how long the pots have survived, and hey, just anything on your mind that's remotely on point.

The Wrong Tool

Newbie gardeners these days have it easy.  Thanks to gardening blogdom, they get to read what real gardeners say about the down-and-dirty of real gardening.  Like this little piece of advice I'm happy to pass on. You don't have to spend 20 years digging with the wrong damn tool like I did because I'm telling ya right now, the pickaxe is the clear winner in the Takoma Digging Trials.  The shovel, the tool that's singlehandedly upped the annual income of my physical therapist, is for lifting and moving the dirt, not digging it.  Ya dig?  Oh, the shovel could handle digging in store-bought potting soil or pure compost, but the rock-imbedded clay on my property?  No fricking way.

[Photo - an improvement over the standard pickaxe shot I first included here.  And the umbrella's my temporary solution to the full-sun here resulting from the removal of a Bradford pear.  A better umbrella is coming soon.]

The Road to Electric

Oh, it's been a long haul for me and my Sears gas-driven lawnmower.  Bought used in 1985 and serviced only once, it's not only served my needs but those of several of my neighbors.  Yes, here in Crunchy Takoma we share mowers and power washers and spreaders and mulch deliveries and lots more stuff I don't know about in the child care department. 

But back to what's really important, the mower.  Our relationship began to crumble last spring after I replaced the railroad-tie steps leading to my back lawn with huge but rough boulders.  They're gorgeous and oh, so naturalistic, but I had to carry the damn mower as I was going up and down, so I began to get a bad attitude toward mowing.  Like whining about having to do it.  And I'd always loved that clean new look you get from this simple act, which takes me only 30 minutes for the front and back lawns combined, thanks to gradual turf reduction over the years.

So recently I let my fingers do the walking and ordered this little guy, a 13-inch electric mower made in China under the terribly unsexy brand name of Yard Machines, for $120 delivered to my door.  I know cords are supposed to be a pain but I was willing to give it a try for my small lawns.

THE RESULTS  Wherein I discovered what a different experience mowing electrically really is, different in good ways.  Working with such a lightweight machine is a pleasure, and most of all, there's the quiet.  Now, I've never been bothered by the sound of a gas mower myself but it's always been frustrating, in the hot, steamy days of high summer, to have to wait till 9 a.m. to do my mowing, when the air is cool and I'm ready to go at 5:30. With this guy being so quiet, I can mow whenever I want to. 

And then there's the nice result of reducing the pollution I cause while I'm here on Earth.  I read recently that thanks to legislative inaction in this area, gas mowers produce 90 times the pollutants per gallon of gas as a 2006 car, which is much worse than I imagined back in my bad-old pollutin' days.

Everybody Loves CobraHead

Let me be the first to thank Andrea at Heavy Petal for the prize that arrived in today's mail - a CobraHead "precision weeder and cultivator,"  which I won because my little essay on how I got started gardening was chosen as the best of the bunch.  Well, actually the four winners were chosen at random but who's to know?   Having recently read some raves about this little tool on a garden forum I'd been perusing, I knew a good thing was coming my way.

And while I confess I haven't tried it yet, I'm already convinced by the enthusiastic testimonials, one of which called it addicting.  Well, all I need is to become even more addicted to gardening, so I'll take that as a precautionary note.

A quick question for my ever-astute readers, and a short comment.  First, the enclosed information tells me that "Working in conjunction with a good garden fork, there is no bed too tough to be quickly weeded."  Okay, what the hell is a garden fork?  My first guess was a cultivator but this tool is intended to be used to cultivate, so it can't be that.  Guesses?  Could it be what we Easterners call a garden rake?

And there's a testimonial that caught my eye. A gardener in Wisconsin wrote that she was amazed - exclamation point - because "I have always employed more of a soak it and pull by hand weeding style, rather than using a tool for the job. Battling weeds this way is just that, a battle."  No offense, but humans have been using tools now for, I don't know, ages, and I wonder why she'd never given it a try until recently being given this one.  M. Sinclair Stevens in Texas, do you suppose the term "Luddite" would apply here, too?  (I was corrected when I referred to a computer-deprived tree-grower as a "Neanderthal" because apparently Neanderthals were enamored with technology, unlike the clueless Luddites of the world.  Now I'm using "Luddite" every chance I can.  Previously my favorite word was troglodyte, someone who lives in a cave.  Very handy word, too, and it's nice to know the subtle differences, as I know Sinclair would agree.)

And Andrea, have you guys set a date?  Don't keep us in the dark.

Meet the Slayer of Invaders

Admire, if you will, the newest addition to my tool collection, the amazing Whatchamacallit.  Lately it's been the perfect tool for removing two of the worst invaders in the wooded valley in back of my house - multiflora rose and greenbriar.  Boyoboy it's gratifying to dig out crappy plants like these, roots and all, knowing they'll finally be gone, at least for a while.   

If these horrible plants are new to you, I'll just say that multiflora rose isn't as nice as it sounds.  It's truly one of those "alien invaders" we're always hearing about.  Greenbriar, on the other hand, is something we almost never hear about - the native invader.  In fact, many native plant advocates, especially the newly converted, will tell you that by definition, native plants can do no wrong.  Well, somebody forgot to tell that to the greenbriar because, in the words of an astonished neighbor of mine, it "behaves really badly."  To wit:  smothering our beloved native woodland azaleas and any other desireable plants struggling to out-compete the junk plants that dominate this ecological mishmash.  The explanation may have to do with all the other factors that have changed in the last 500 years since European invasion (and aren't we the worst invaders of all?) Maybe its competitors or the animals that eat it have become extinct, though it's hard to imagine an animal eating this prickly, disgusting plant.  Here it is, though you'll have to imagine it even uglier and totally covering large shrubs and small trees.

Whatever their origin or the cause of their misbehavior, winter's a great time to get rid of them and did I mention how satisfying it is?

The Gloves I Love

My gardening gloves, be they ever so humble.  Most days I use the $4 fabric gloves on the left.  They last about a year of hard use, but at that price I buy myself two or three pair a year and always have enough.  Best of all, they fit both hands equally well, so I never have to hunt down a left and a right.  Imagine the freedom, the convenience, the sheer niftiness of that idea.  See how easy I am to please?

The newer pair on the right are my muddy-day gloves because they have rubber where you need it.  At $10 a pair they're more expensive, but they last forever.  They came in very handy this past weekend as I was moving large amounts of wet soil.  You know, the kind of real gardening work we never talk about when we show people around our lovely finished products.

There's one more pair I use once every other year or so and they're the stiff, hard-to-put-on and hard-to-use leather gloves we're supposed to use for practically everything because they offer so much protection.  So okay, if I'm wielding a very dangerous power tool, I'll put 'em on, but I'll never like 'em.

Adirondack Chairs

My last post casually referred to sitting in these chairs while admiring an oak tree, which is fine, but whoa, Nelly, they deserve more attention than that. In fact, I'm here to profess my love for these chairs and go so far as to suggest you get one for yourself, or something like it.  Here's why. 

They have history and style.  They're comfortable, especially with the optional foot stool or in the chaise lounge version.  The arms are flat and wide enough to hold a drink, reducing the need for a small table.  They can add any look to your garden - either stained and weathered or painted your favorite garden-worthy color.  This teal is my favorite and it's repeated on my tool shed.  My neighbors use it, too, so I know it isn't just me.

And here are your options, which you'll see by Googling something like "Adirondack chair" or "garden furniture".  White pine chairs like these start as low as $90, the chaise lounge $110, a two-person bench $130, a rocker $120 and tables $65.  Really affordable stuff.  Yes, it requires a bit of work.  I had to assemble these myself, then prime and paint twice.  Every fall I touch up any gouges - at these prices you don't get hardwood.

Speaking of hardwood, if you're feeling a bit more generous with yourself spring for teak, a gorgeous, carefree wood.  I paid $320 for this teak bench about 19 years ago, fully assembled and retail, then did absolutely nothing to it.  You see the result, and close up looks just as good - smooth, no splinters - truly amazing.  It'll certainly outlast me, with no work on my part.  I see on line that teak Adirondacks are on sale for a ridiculously low $150 and that benches start at $500, with assembly required. 

And coincidentally, winter's a great time to assemble and treat or paint your new garden furniture.  Then by spring your garden will have new seating for you and your family or guests.  Mine is mainly for the important duties of tree- and bird-watching. 

Bottom line, what's a garden without seating, anyway?

Pruners

Where would we all be without our pruners?  We get the answer to that seemingly innocuous question when we lose them, and it ain't pretty.  We struggle to keep our nature-lovers' serenity but we feel adrift in the garden without our main tool.

I'd been existing in this lost state for months until recently my Felco #2 (on the left) turned up on my front-porch chair, returned by a neighbor who'd found it. Thank you! While it was lost I'd cheaped out and bought a Corona (right) which is at least another bypass type, the kind I love, and this one supposedly cuts through even thicker branches.  Well, fugedaboutit. The hand grips didn't feel right and the locking mechanism caught when I didn't want it to.  I'd already promised myself to stay loyal to my first and best love in pruners - Felco - when the cheap substitute fell apart after its fifth outing.  Guess I didn't save any money after all.

But here's another confession.  That gray-looking stuff on the Felco's red handles is cement.  Oh yeah, I've been using it with wet cement on my hands, a clear case of tool abuse.  And after it'd served me loyally all those years.

I had to get that off my chest.