Great topic!

Black & Decker cordless HedgeHog trimmer for lavender, nepeta and most other heavily blooming perennials and shrubs that need a trim now and then.

Carpenter's nail apron that I wear in the garden for my hand pruners, trowel, tie tape, gloves, etc. Cheap at Lowe's HW.

Tub trug flexible bucket that I use for everything -- deadheading or bringing in blooms; hauling off the weeds that I pull; even using it to haul water.

Watering can -- I have drip irrigation in part of the garden, but when I plant something new, I'd rather make a few trips with the watering can than roll out a long garden hose to the hard to reach spaces.

Long-handled Cultivator fork -- I use it after a rain to easily reach between plants to rake out newly sprouted weeds and to fluff up the mulch to prove to my DH that we don't need to add more! LOL

As a sidebar, PlantTone is my favorite organic fertilizer. I've just started using Neem Oil (mixed with water and a bio dish liquid) as a natural foliar spray against Japanese Beetles, black spot, etc. I used it a few weeks ago and my Knock Out and minature potted roses are blooming earlier than ever.

Cameron

Hands down my "sit upon" rolling garden stool is my favorite. With a bad back, it allows me to pull weeds and dead head, etc. from a sitting position. It also houses most of my hand held gardening tools.

I also love my Hound Dog Weeder. Makes quick work of removing dandelions in the yard.
Vikki

Here is a link that might be useful: Hound Dog

I have a shed full of gardening tools all get used at some time or other but have to say these are my favorites.

First and foremost is my kneeling sitting stool for when numerous body parts are not in a co-operative mood.

2... old hand held claw which DH welded back together for me.

3... old trowel that was found in the yard when we moved here in 65, has had handle replaced twice.

4... small rake with long handle.

5... my Felco pruners for lefties.

6... a hand held wire rake.

7... last but not least my little Mantis tiller, which is soon to be replace with a new one thanks to Libby for tracking one down for me :o).

Although I have many tools new and old these are the ones I find most useful and with the exception of the tiller use almost every day.

Annette

My favourite garden tools are the ones I don't have to use! :O

Sierra ;)

My favorites...

1. A brand new favorite...a...well, I don't know what to call it. It's got a flat blade on the end of a long handle like a hoe. The blade is set at a bit of an angle. Slide the blade under the mulch and over the weeds and pull to cut any weeds off at the roots. Deadly and hardly ruffles the mulch. Dh got it at a garage sale a few weeks ago and put a nice sharp edge on the blade. I'm calling it the 'shuffle thing' because it reminds me of the action needed to play shuffle board.

2. The wheelbarrow and/or the trailer for my lawn mower. Makes moving bags of topsoil, mulch, and container plants much easier.

3. The five or six connection water thing. (great with names, huh?) The main water hose goes in one side. Several other hoses are connected and can be turned on or off with a small valve switch. We put a long hose alll the way out to the far corner of our acre. Once we turn on the water, we can control which hoses and how much from the connector. Saves lots of steps.

4. My good hand trowel. Substantial with a comfortable handle.

5. Kneeling pad saves my knees.

6. Red handled long loppers for pruning. Also my hand held clippers.

7. The water well. It is nice to have our own well.

8. A healthy teenage boy to haul bags of mulch and top soil from the car to the gardens. (He insists he is leaving for college someday. How will he manage to haul bags and still make it to class on time? lol)

I want a tiller. Not a little one either. I found one I like at HD and have lusted after it for two years.

Here is a link that might be useful: Creative Soul

Happyintexas, your shuffle thing is called a scuffle hoe. I have one too and love mine, it's so handy.

My favorite garden tool is a four pronged digging tool with a 24" handle on it.

I painted the handles of all my tools red after I lost one for nearly a year in tall grass. We found it with the mower and it was really mangled. I even painted the handles of my hammers, screwdrivers and wrenches red. Helps a lot to find things if you drop them and the light's not so good or there's tall grass. Now I can see where they are and also find them when it's time to go in, usually dark by then too. Cheryl

1. I love my little garden stool. I can sit and weed or plant out seedlings. I have replaced knees that I have to baby and a bad back. My stool lets me work out in the garden for hours.

2.My shuffle hoe. I think they were once marked as hula hoes. They work well as long as you don't have lots of rocks.

3a. Timers for the hoses. I have things on drip or soaker hoses and have several connected together with a manifold. The timer lets me set how long the water will be on so that I don't worry about finding a flood because I got busy and forgot to turn off the water.

3b. I have one timer with two outlets that can be set for different times. It turns on automatically. I use this for one area that is far from the house. Last summer when it was hot(100+) I had it set for 4 AM and my yard was always ready for the heat without any suffering plants.

4. Two teenage granddaughters. My personal slaves. They go over to the neighbors and muck out their stables so I can use the nice horse poo. It's wonderful stuff. They also keep me supplied in bamboo stakes by going out to the creek and cutting it for me. Unfortunately, they hate to pull weeds.

My felcos. : ) I'm pushing the 100 mark on roses so they are my best gardening "friend".

Great topic! Where would we be without our favorite tools!

1. Pruners. I feel naked without them in my hand lol

2. Hand held claw...LOVE these. I had a hard time finding them and just came across a specialty garden shop today that had them. They seem to be being replaced by mini pitchforks. That will never work for me!

3. My old, old tractor with wagon. DH keeps asking me why I don't attach the wagon to the newer mower. He does not get that I am not gardening unless I am driving "Mable"!

4. Small shovel with long straight handle with grip. I use this all the time!

I keep a Fiskars garden scissors in my back pocket at all times and use it for everything. (I'm sure that's a no-no in all safety courses . . .)

I have a "collection" of wheelbarrows - a huge one for cutting back or moving compost, a heavy duty one for moving gravel and rocks, etc., several regular ones that are used for carrying whatever, a small, low-to-the-ground one, etc. I have LOTS of wheelbarrows and use them all.

My camera - I use it to take photos of what works and what doesn't, or to remember which lilies are white and which were orange. They are so useful when I am planning something new.

Most of my tools have been mentioned above.
I can only add:

The sprinkler my DH made for me. It consists of an old brass hose nozzle fixed upright on a long piece of copper pipe with a hose contection near the bottom. I can adjust the nozzle to water large parts of my garden.

A ball of cheap black wool. Much nicer for tying up plants than regular string.

Libby

My favorite tool is a long handled child's rake. I can rake up the leaves between my perennials so easy with this little rake - it was $.99 at Big Lots several years ago.
A long handled cement shovel that I got for $5 is my next favorite tool. I need a very long handled shovel and this was the only kind that I can get here locally that is long enough!

GGG

This year I had a ton of small flower bulbs to plant, so I bought a dibble (dibbler). Love it! Makes the job easy, and did not disturb other bulbs that were planted there.
~Natalie

My favorites are:
A good lawn mower that is easy to start. Finally have one!!

A long handled garden claw. I use it for redistributing mulch and stirring up vegetable beds. Ofter easier than using my Matis Tiller.

Ergonomic hand tools, essential when one has carpal tunnel syndrome.

I have two sprinklers similar to the one Libby's husband made for her (mine are plastic). They are pretty great for use in the vegetable garden. I run a hose to them and just leave them in one spot all summer.

My trusty wheelbarrow and garden cart that hooks on to the tractor mower or the 4-wheeler.

MeMo

My scuffle hoe IS my favorite tool! Living out here in the country with all the weed seeds blowing off the fields I would be lost without it. Using it every other day for 15 minutes, I weed the entire garden which is about 50' x 25'.

Patti

My permanently crippled hands. I should have been more careful with them.

Great topic!

1. I too am a lover of all things TUBTRUG. I even went to the trouble to buy only one of each color, so that way when I tell DH that I need the PURPLE one, he can't get confused...I love that they come in different sizes, and they have them at our farm supply store locally, so no shipping!

www.tubtrug.com

2. Dibble, Dibble, Dibble! I got one just a month ago from the Amana Colonies locally here in Iowa. It was pricey at 10.00, or so I thought. I have already used it enough for it to pay for itself. I will be using it quite a bit as soon as spring finally arives, it makes a hole perfectly sized for plants in a 4- or 6-pack.

3. My Big Yellow Garden Wagon. This was a (very early - like august) Christmas present from DH. The sides all fold down, it has a tray to hold my tools in it, and a removable liner. Add in the pneumatic wheels, and pulling HEAVY loads is very easy.

--this isnÂt where he got it from, but it has the best picture
www.parissupply.com/catalog/3599202_thumb.jpg

4. Garden Kneepads, they allow me to move around the garden quickly, and go from one task to another without having to lift and move one of the kneeling pads. They are by Fiskars and they attach by Velcro so they fit over my bulky cold-weather clothes, and my slightly-less-bulky warm weather legs.

www.letmeoutdoors.com/metal/ps/94186974tb.jpg

5. Coated Gloves, you know the kind with the rubbery coating just on the palm and fingers? We have what I like to call Brick-Ready Clay here, so it is almost always wet, some of it stains the hands (I had a 2 yellowish fingers for a week or so last summer), and it likes to rip of fingernails without asking first. I think I have 6 or 8 pairs, and now they make them ultra thin too, so I can do some of the delicate work without crushing the little guys that I am plantingÂ

6. Small feed scoop. No, seriously! Remember the clay? I have to add amendments to almost everything, and the feed scoop gets just the right amount in one or two scoops.

7. Last but by no means least Power-Pivot Pruners by Fiskars. They are set up with the hinge at the back, and a pivot at the front, so that you are using the strongest part of your hand when you squeeze them. Ah heck, just look at the picture in this article. They work great, I did all my spring pruning, and had very little hand fatigue afterwardsÂ

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080313/LIVING03/914932787/1029/LIVING04

Hmmm...I think I want that manifold with timer thing! A couple of times I've set the soaker hose on in the evening, left for work and forgot to turn it off. Fortunately, I keep it on really, really low, but still...

As for tools I actually own:

1. Perennial-digging spade - long and narrow blade, great for digging up one plant without disturbing everything around it.

2. Straight-edged spade from my dad, for edging beds

3. little hand weeder, for digging up dandelions, etc.

4. soaker hoses

I've been using Felco 6's and 12's (the ones designed for small hands) for pruning roses for years and love them.

Womanswork gauntlet pigskin gloves are the toughest for thorny plants. I have lighter gloves for weeding but these are the ones I use for roses, and like the extra arm protection of the gauntlet.

My small edging tool. It is a stainless steel half-moon with an edge to step on it. Makes edging much easier. I am edging all my beds with this. One day I want to put some hard edging in the ground so I don't have to do this, but until then this tool works great.

I have a long-handled small shovel for planting small perennials and seedlings in addition to a regular sized shovel, and for a lot of tasks the small shovel does the job with less effort and less ground disturbance.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lori's Garden

The good old English shovell which is my essentual digging tool.You folks might have a different name for it but if you know how to use it you can dig a hole like a mole.Look at that Im a poet and I didnt know it.Tip.always soak the ground your digging first

My old child's rake. Better than the new ones I see these days.
Small wire rake.
My Felcos.
My Trake - little hand rake (claw) on one side and a trowel on the other.
My gauntlet rose gloves.
A kitty litter container to transport all my stuff from home to garden center and back again. I'm always lugging stuff around.
I miss my old claw that I had as a found item at the house we bought back in 1974. I guess I left it behind in the last move. It was an antique that worked perfectly.

peachie, your kitty litter container reminded me of the container I keep on the back seat of my truck. It is one of those under-the-bed plastic containers. It is perfect for holding plants in place and no messy drips to get on the upholstery. Sometimes I shop at nurseries that aren't close to where I live so I don't want to transport the plants in the truck bed where they will dry out from the wind and sun on the way home, so this container works great!

Diana