Congratulations on your new home! It’s incredibly exciting to have a space that you can call your own and an opportunity to express yourself in the design of your indoor and outdoor spaces. But for new homeowners, knowing what to do with a yard can be a little more daunting or overwhelming than arranging the interior of your house. For the best results, you must start with the right tools to approach your yard. But what you decide to purchase can depend on your budget, how much of the yard work you want to do yourself, and what vegetation you want to cultivate. Therefore, we have two lists for you: the easy garden kit, and the larger landscaping wish lists.
Easy Garden Kit: This list is aimed at providing all the tools necessary to tidy up, trim, plant, and prune all the shrubs, flowers, vegetables, fruit trees and all basic garden elements in your yard.
1 – A quality pair of gloves: or maybe a few pairs. Gloves are necessary for any work with plants, but a few different kinds in your kit will help. Soft cotton gloves will be best for working with delicate plants like flowers, rubber or plastic tipped gloves can handle piles of wet leaves or moist soil, and leather or cowhide are best for all other purposes. They can protect the hands from cuts, blisters, thorns, biting insects, and many other hazards.
2 – Wheelbarrow: With all that work you are planning, you’re going to need a way to remove the debris. A wheelbarrow is a necessary tool for everyone who has yardwork on their mind, to transport clippings, mulch, gravel, shorn weeds, and anything else you can think of.
3 – A shovel, a spade, and a trowel: This trio will be your constant companions when working in your yard. There are a plethora of options in this category but don’t get overwhelmed when you’re buying. You’ll need a concave shovel to break up and transport dirt, a flat edged spade to dig deeper and cut roots as you go, and a smaller trowel to handle the detail work when planting.
4 – Leaf rake, garden rake, and shrub rake: They may have similar names but they have different purposes. Leaf rakes have wide heads with flat coverage to handle large jobs, such as leaves, cuttings, and prunings. Garden rakes have wide and thin heads with many teeth and are used to prepare garden soil for planting, pulling away smaller debris, breaking up soil chunks, and loosening or turning the soil to aerate it. Shrub rakes kind of look like a mini pitch fork with a smaller head and a long reach. This design functions well to both prepare the soil by turning and breaking it up and to help maintain a planted garden by moving easily between the vegetation with less breakage of roots or stems.
5 – Loppers, shears, and pruners: One of each is the best route for pruning your new garden. Loppers have small curved blades with long handles attached and are used for larger pruning of branches. Shears have long straight blades with similar length handles and are used primarily for wide spaces with minimal growth, like hedges. Pruners are hand-held, spring-loaded, and only intended to be used on small, thin pieces of wood.
6 – Garden hose with attachments or sprinkler: This one seems obvious, but make sure that your hose is long enough to reach the areas of your property that will need extra watering.
Larger Landscaping Wish List: This list is filled with mostly electric machines and tools that carry the brunt of your landscaping. While many people can purchase more expensive items like these all at once, others find it helpful instead to buy them over time and make use of landscaping specialists to handle the larger work in the meantime.
1 – Lawn Mower: for the lawn
2 – Snowblower: for the snow
3 – Pressure Washer: for the walkways
4 – Weed Whacker: for the weed overgrowth
5 – Leaf Blower: for easier pile-making
6 – Mulcher: for composting or easier leaf removal
7 – Pruning Saw/ Hedge Trimmer: for easier hedge and branch pruning
8 – Edger or String Trimmer: for tidying up the edges of walkways and flowerbeds
9 – Don’t forget the extension cord: because we always do
As a new homeowner, the to-do list is extensive and it’s often difficult to know where to start. These lists should give you an idea of how to begin, but enlisting the help of landscaping design professionals or lawn care specialists can make all the difference. Anthony’s Lawn Care and Landscaping can provide quick, free estimates concerning a wide variety of services to give you a head start on your dream garden and yard. Call them at (812) 345 – 5694 for your consultation.
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