WHETHER your grounds are large or small, the right tools and equipment can speed routine tasks and help you to successful gardening. Taking good care of your tools and keeping them in one place will pay dividends in time and effort. If you do not have a tool house or room where you can keep all your tools, and the insecticides, fertilizers, stakes, wire, paint and other equipment a well-prepared gardener should have, arrange to make space in your garage, or build a locker in a corner of your carport or breezeway. A tool shed that is like a giant kitchen cabinet can be added lean-to fashion to your garage.

There are basic tools everybody needs. These include a metal shank spade or, better, the easier-to-handle and extremely useful spading fork, and the small and handy planting shovel. Then, to carry in a hand box or basket, so you will have them when you need them, your steel shank hand trowel, hand fork and hand cultivator. An iron or bow rake is fundamental, of course, and so is the bamboo or broom rake. A weed spud for hand removal of weeds is a favourite instrument, and a good pair of shears or a hand pruner is indispensable. The other musts are your hose, hand mower, roller, watering can and wheelbarrow.

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