Black & Decker Hedgehog cordless trimmer. Makes fast work of trimming and shaping lavender, nepeta, coreopsis... anything with lot of small flowers. I also use it to cut back the ornamental grasses in a flash!

I do love my Felco Pruners, but the trimmer is such a time-saver.

Cameron

Serrated garden scoop. I even carried one in my RV.

my pruners
my pitchfork which I use to dig out plants, oxygenate lawns, break up the soil
my trowels
my shovels
my trug

Pruners, I use tree pots for trugs (thank-you to my pals at Trees Atlanta!!), cement shovel - best thing for the very tall, garden fork, narrow trowel, children's long handled rake (gets between plants!!! I love it!) and lastly, my sledge hammer for breaking up concrete into edging material!

I thought I'd include a picture. I use this alot, especially for weeding. Its great for getting the roots of weeds loosened. Its made by Fiskars.

{{gwi:651583}}

My favorite tool is a trowel with a serrated edge on the bottom...but now I'm wondering if that's called a serrated garden scoop...whatever it is, I love it! It cuts through all the little tree roots that keep showing up in my rose garden.

My most-used is a J-shaped crack-weeder - It's great for weeding anywhere - you can slide it under the top layer of soil to loosen it and remove weeds or lift grass. Used vertically, it does a nice job of edging touch-ups in small areas.

I used a triangular hoe, a Cobra weeder which I use whenever I am breaking new ground, and my most recent favorite is a weeder I got from Lehman's catalog which is wonderful for tough weeds like wild onions, violets, and anything else with a tough root. I has a "claw" that is somewhat sharp so it goes into the ground, a "pedal that you step on and rock the tool. It pries that weed out root and all and the root is contained in the claw. Just toss in the wheelbarrow and go on.
kay

My favorites are my goat skin gloves, my garden clogs (those may not be tools, but they are indispensible to me), my shovel, my cart, hedge trimmers, battery powered chain saw, and a draw hoe.

Woodyoak - is the draw hoe what you have? I love mine! It attaches to a long handle.

Here is a link that might be useful: Picture of draw hoe - a great weeder!

holleygarden - no that's not what I meant - see the tool in the linked picture... (The Lee Valley one rusts unforunately but I lost the nice one I had originally and the rust doesn't affect its working; just doesn't look nice :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: crack weeder

crack weeder - a weeder for cracks! Who would have thought? lol Thanks for clearing that up for me. :)

I have learned a lot from this post. I even have a hori hori and didn't know it! DH and I keep wondering what to do with that strange knife thing! Now I know - use it in the garden! lol

Korean hand-plow (homi), no two ways about it. Great for digging up weeds, planting bulbs, smoothing surfaces, edging beds. I love the hand-wrought look of it too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Korean Hand Plow

My spading fork - best thing for digging big plants with soil intact, and large clumps of any kind of plant or flower you want to thin. It spades, it cultivates (by turning it in the soil) and it turns compost. I can use it for forking manure hay and tilling in around the flowers and veggies, and without chopping up the worms and frogs when I do.
I really digs out Bermuda grass and runners.
Great for prying up rocks and bricks when I want to move them. Birds use it for a perch when I am not using it. (tee hee).

If I was just starting out, that would be the tool I would get first.

With a good sharp, sturdy shovel and my Dutch Hoe, they are the backbone of my most used tools. Then my hand tools - An old garden hoe (80+ yrs old that has long since lost it's handle that I found buried when getting pinestraw at an old house). They don't make hoes like that anymore. Awesome old hoe. The other hand tool that I don't know what to call it- it has a narrow hoe on one side and a three-tined fork on the other.

~Annie