Garden Kit: The good, the bad, and the non-existent

If there are any regular readers of this blog they might be able to confirm that since I’ve been writing it – for 17 years – I don’t think I’ve written about any gardening kit. We’re really all about plants, but it did strike me that you might like to hear what I find useful around the garden and what not. The singing reindeer have reappeared at the local horticultural emporium, so my mind turned to “gardening gifting”.

There’s obviously no advertorial involved in this – who on earth would pay me for a mention? The selections are idiosyncratic and, of course, driven by my own needs.

We made a garden here in Somerset from largely waste ground, starting in 2012. We have short of 2 acres; formal garden and veg patch, small meadow areas, forest garden, pond, small orchard. We’ve also got a lot of hedgerow going on, which I manage by trimming and laying. I do most of the work around the garden myself, with sporadic help. 

Oh, and I should mention – we’ve spent some time in Japan, so there’s a bit of that vibe going on too.

The Good 

...in no particular order:

1.      Electric Chainsaw

I’ve always been lary of chainsaws. Living in a rural location you hear about people chopping off limbs or having narrow escapes with them. Maybe some of these are cider related issues, but they make me nervous. I’m not super technical either, so when my old petrol chainsaw wouldn’t fire up after a long layoff I tended to throw up my hands and use a saw instead.

I am now the proud owner of a Husqvarna 225i electric chainsaw. What a game changer. For an occasional user – and particularly for hedgelaying – it’s a fantastic piece of kit. Rather than leaving it growling on the ground when I’m not using it, unless I squeeze the trigger it’s off. That must be safer when I’m tripping over roots or getting caught in branches in a hedgeline. I’ve got an electric Husqvarna hedge cutter too, with its own battery, so I charge one battery when I’m using the other. They last plenty long enough anyway. The 225i will cheerfully barrel through anything I’m likely to want to drop, in a hedge or just generally.  

2.      Nata

When I need something to cut smaller stems I was originally told on my hedgelaying course I needed a billhook. I never really got on with them. It’s probably my technique or care, but I’ve never found they had the heft I needed. I used to split pleachers with a hand axe but a while ago migrated to a Japanese nata. I’m such a fan we sell them on our website. We used to call a nata a machete, but the Google thought police reckoned we might be facilitating mass murder so now they are “hatchets”. Altogether less threatening. Use a nata for making firewood too, or other jobs like coppicing. 

3.      Pruning Saw

I seem to do a lot of pruning, mostly roses – which we have a lot of - and fruit trees. It’s super satisfying. A decent pruning saw is a must. There are a number of good saw makers and, generally, you get what you pay for. It’s worth paying up as a)you can’t sharpen a pruning saw and b)a poor one will mean extra work and poor cutting. I’m not sure there’s very much point buying a particularly long one, but if you do, don’t get a folding version as the folding locking mechanism can be iffy for heavy use. I use a small folding saw and replace the blade when I need to.

4.      Secateurs

Everyone seems to have a view, but I have settled on a couple of pairs of aesthetically pleasing Japanese jobs and – for heavier work – I have my much used Felcos. You very much get what you pay for here as well, although some makes seem over-priced. And just because they are made in Japan doesn’t mean they’re any good, of course. I wouldn’t personally buy secateurs online – I think you need to physically check them out. Technically I don’t like an anvil action, which tends to be cheaper but will tend to crush the stem you’re cutting. Anvil loppers for me and bypass secateurs. Whichever, do keep them in decent nick.

5.      Wheeled Strimmer

Ok, a slightly weird machine, but super helpful. Let me explain. We have several nooks and crannies and undulating areas in our wildflower meadows and around the forest garden. Shamefully I no longer scythe the whole thing, and any of the larger machines I might use can’t cope with this sort of tricky environment. I’ve always avoided normal strimmers in the past; they’ve seemed to be unreliable, heavy, potentially dangerous and not great for producing an even cut of thick grass. Enter the Weibang wheeled strimmer, which seems to deal with pretty serious undergrowth too, including some annoying sedge we have which seems bent on taking over the whole garden.

6.      Heated Incubator

No-one ever explained to me how essential this simple piece of kit was, particularly if you have a greenhouse and you’re keen on veg growing. Get a big one and something smaller if you can.

7.      Water Mister

This is not very me, but my brother and sister-in-law, a brilliant present buyer, bought a dinky old fashioned copper water mister for my orchids. I think it’s this one. I love it. It would be brilliants to have something like it but bigger for the greenhouse too (Sarah, are you reading this?).

8.      Dividing Spade

This seems like a pretty niche tool, but it’s one we somehow end up using a lot. It’s a small spade with sharp edges, particularly designed for dividing perennials in autumn. It’s helpful for any kind of work kneeling down too. Burgon & Ball, from good stockists etc. 

9.      Golden Spade

This is just a stupidly simple idea. I tolerated years of breaking spades with wooden shafts; why? It’s nuts – why are they even made? I have had my all steel spade – again, Japanese – for years now, and it’s brilliant. 

10.   Large Plastic Tubs

Silly but needs saying… you can’t have too many, and they won’t start rotting when you leave them outside. I have trashed too many beautiful expensive trugs over the years. Plastic trugs don’t have tyres which are constantly deflating either. Travis Perkins etc.    

The Bad

1.      Mini electric chainsaw

This is just a silly idea. I bought one which threw its chain constantly when confronted with any stem bigger than one easily lopped. The battery didn’t last long and took ages to charge. What’s the point of them?

2.      Snips

Mrs Mann loves a cool pair of snips, but I just don’t get it. Wandering through the garden of an evening delicately cutting blooms with a gin and tonic in one hand and a flat bottomed flower basket in the other just isn’t my thing. What’s wrong with secateurs?

3.      Tool Belt

Another area of domestic disagreement. I do get that putting sharp things in my pockets means they get holes. Apart from that, why am I more likely to remember tools if they are in a belt, and why are they more convenient to access? I do have a tool belt somewhere, but can never be bothered to put it on.

4.      Dibbers

Surely fingers are dibbers in disguise?

5.      Domestic Chippers

Little domestic electric wood chippers are hopeless. They’ll only deal with twigs, pretty much. Unless you chop down trees constantly, just ask your local tree surgeon to drop by when you need to and they’ll smash through a couple of tonnes of wood chip in no time.

6.      Garden Pocket Multi-tools

Potentially do lots of things, none of them well.

7.      Kneelers

Expensive cushions designed to make you feel old.

8.      String Holders

Why?

9.      Metal Birds

Please don’t buy a metal robin to stick into a tree. It’s just too depressing.

10.   Patio Heaters

If you’re looking for great ways to increase your carbon footprint, patio heaters are a fantastic place to start. A new jumper is going to work out a fair bit cheaper too.

The Non-existent

Cut and Collect Machine

This is a serious bugbear. I was just about to import something which might have done the job from an obscure town in Guangdong as COVID hit. On reflection I don’t think it would have worked anyway, sadly.

It’s an increasingly essential part of meadow maintenance to cut and collect the hay in late summer, as well as cut in the autumn and winter if you have no stock to nibble the sward. It’s pretty easy to find a cutting machine for smaller meadow areas – an automatic scythe or ideally a traditional scythe – but collecting up all the arisings is a massive pain. This must be done; leaving them on the ground to rot will not only fertilise the soil (bad) but also form a thick mulch which many wildflowers won’t grow through. Farmers and contractors won’t bale smaller areas, so what to do?

There are cut and collect machines commercially available and widely used, by councils and contractors, but they’re hellish expensive. For the time being all you can do is just give the children a rake and £20.