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The GroundHog Rake: A Video Review, and Why I Love it for Mulching
This time of year, I’m adding a fresh layer of bark mulch to many of my gardens to hold moisture in and keep the weeds down. Right now it’s especially easy to do because the plants are still small from winter dormancy, so I can spread it out without having to bend and wiggle to…
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Video Review of Fiskars Powergear Hedging Shear
If you’ve hung around North Coast Gardening for any length of time, you know that I’m a sucker for tools that do multiple jobs well. This hedging shear is my go-to tool for cutting back perennials in fall and winter, pruning ornamental grasses and sword ferns in winter, and deadheading heathers and other plants that…
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Video Review of the Fiskars Pruning Stik, My Favorite Pole Pruner
Lightweight’s the name of the game for this pole pruner. I’ve been using these Fiskars Pruning Stiks for many years in my landscaping business and have not yet broken or had to retire one. Many pole pruners fail because they try to do too much – they have a saw, a lopper, they extend, and…
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How to Prune Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ (Video Tutorial)
Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ is a true garden classic, especially paired with ornamental grasses, lavenders and colorful sages. It’s particularly great because during the summer when everything else is blooming, its greenish-white buds are getting bigger and bigger, creating a subtly beautiful show, then as everything else slows for the fall, ‘Autumn Joy’ bursts into bloom…
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“I Grow Good Weed”, A Soil Knife Review
My new blogging friend Karl wrote me recently to rave about his favorite gardening tool, the Fiskars Big Grip Knife. It just so happened that I had just recorded a video and written my own review of my two favorite weeding tools, and after I included his review with mine, he wrote a follow-up post…
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Lookin’ Sharp – How to Keep Your Garden Tools Clean and Sharpened (Video)
Wrapping up our series on the hand tools we use most in gardening, I want to show you my favorite sharpening tool, the Speedy Sharp, and how to use it to sharpen your pruning shears and your soil knife or hori-hori: Now, if you prefer to use a file to sharpen your shears, Fine Gardening…
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What to Brandish at Your Weeds: Hori-Horis, Soil Knives, and Trowels (With a Video Review of my Top Two!)
(Note – given how many people have emailed me in response to this post, I wrote an updated version which can be found here!) Weeding is one of those perennial garden tasks – we all do it, all year long, and while there are sprays and tools we can use from a standing position, most…
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Protective Gear That Won’t Slow You Down: Review of Gardening Knee Pads and Gloves
Many people avoid wearing gloves and knee pads to garden because they see these kinds of protective gear as getting between them and the experience of gardening. Either kneeling pads pinch the backs of your legs uncomfortably, or you can’t feel what you’re doing while wearing gloves. That’s totally valid, but there are things you…
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Hand Pruner Showdown: Felco VS Corona VS Bahco
Pruners are a sensitive topic among us gardeners. We all have our favorites and god help the person who champions a competing brand. But that’s what this pruner showdown is about, so please don’t throw tomatoes at me. (I’m only discussing bypass pruners here. Anvil pruners often crush the stems when they make a cut, so they…
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Where to Toss the Weeds? Buckets and Bags to Hold Garden Waste
This week, we’re honoring our love of gardening by taking a hard look at our rusty, underperforming hand tools, and seeing if there might be a better way to approach our routine gardening tasks. Gardeners really vary on how we like to deal with the trimmings and weeds we create when doing the rounds in…
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The Professional Gardener’s Tool Box – Basic Hand Tools
Most of the gardening that I do regularly, for clients and for myself, involves repetitive tasks. I spend most of my indoor gardening time thinking about the more artistic side of things – design, choosing plants, and artistic pruning – tasks that are unique to each space and plant. But outdoors, my time falls into…