Category: Tool Reviews

  • Landscape Designer’s Tools of the Trade: Best Measuring Tools

    Landscape Designer’s Tools of the Trade: Best Measuring Tools

    We’re coming up on that time of the year when most of us are doing more armchair gardening and garden planning than actual outside, in-the-dirt gardening, and one of the biggest challenges people encounter when they start measuring or plotting out their garden to create an overall plan is that their tools are woefully inadequate…

  • Review of Fiskars Quantum Hedge Shear: How Does it Compare to the PowerGear Model?

    Review of Fiskars Quantum Hedge Shear: How Does it Compare to the PowerGear Model?

    Over many years of managing a fine landscape maintenance company – one which focuses on the pruning, training, and finer work in the garden beds rather than the mow ‘n’ blow-type service so ubiquitous in the field – I’ve developed some strong loyalties to the workhorse tools which make the day’s pruning faster, more comfortable,…

  • The Latest Gardening Apps for iPhone and Android

    The Latest Gardening Apps for iPhone and Android

    Since I joined the modern world in getting a smart phone last year, I’ve been on the lookout for great gardening apps that can help me explain landscape design ideas to clients, get plant ideas on the go, or just give me a productive way of killing time when I’m stuck in line at the…

  • The Bottomless Planter Box from Outerior Decor

    I’ve been lucky enough over the previous months to get an inside peek into the making of Amy Stewart’s cocktail garden to celebrate her new Drunken Botanist book, and have gotten to look at a number of clever products and construction techniques along the way. One of those clever products is the Outerior Décor series…

  • Garrett Wade Professional Gardener’s Digging Tool

    Garrett Wade Professional Gardener’s Digging Tool

    I’ve written a lot in the past about soil knives, because, well, they’re awesome. If you’re still gardening with a trowel or a dandelion fork, for goodness’ sake stop reading this post right now and go buy a soil knife. (Oh, wait – don’t stop reading yet, this is actually kind of relevant.) Soil knives…

  • The Clarington Forge Rubber Rake: The Coolest Tool You Never Knew You Needed

    Sometimes you come across a tool that solves so many problems you wonder how you went so long without hearing about it. The Clarington Forge rubber rake is one of those tools. “A rubber rake?” I hear you asking incredulously. “Really? WTF?” I’ll forgive you for asking, because if you remember our review of the…

  • The Clarington Forge Rubber Rake: How To Change The Tines

    This doesn’t need a lot of explanation, so I’ll get right to it: Here’s how to change the tines on your Clarington Forge Wizard or Merlin rubber rake.

  • The Roo Weeding and Harvesting Apron

    While I’m usually kind of a minimalist when it comes to new tools, I have to admit that my previous strategy for harvesting eggs, berries, squash, and apples wasn’t really working. For eggs, I would stick as many as I could into my pockets and my hands and try very hard not to smash or…

  • Doofus-Proof Watering: Adjustable Sprinkler and Timer from Dramm

    The initial plan for my home garden was to set up an automated drip irrigation system, but as my garden evolved, I realized how difficult it would be to make that type of setup work for me. Drip systems work best on gardens that have lots of individual shrubs and plants, and I have the…

  • Hose Couture with Dramm’s ColorStorm Line

    Why are most garden hoses so ugly? It’s as though twenty years ago, hose manufacturers decided to pick the most glaringly obvious shade of minty green for all their hoses, and never revisited that decision despite having ample reason to do so. I mean, that hose color is pale enough to show algae stains and…

  • Bogs Gardening Shoes: Waterproof and Stink-Free

    I don’t do many clothing reviews here on North Coast Gardening because most clothes made specifically for gardening are either not my style (I only like floral when it’s thorny and goth), or the manufacturers are so busy thinking about the stereotype of a Lady Gardener that they completely miss out on creating a product…