Favorite Tools in My SoCal Garden

The best pruners, digging tools, and more for year-round use

My father was a master carpenter , probably before that terminus existed . His single - railroad car garage held every kind of prick conceivable , and he was very adoring of telling us that we should use the right puppet for the correct job . I consider he was 100 % right .

Pruners

My favored seed for garden cock isWildflower Seed & Tool Co. , a regional party from Napa Valley that sells at local garden shows . I have all three of their switch off - and - hold pruner — the Woman ’s Pro , the Short Reach , and the Telescopic with Pivot Head . I also have their Telescopic Power Lopper and the Woman ’s Pro By - Pass Pruner .

What I love about all of their hand trimmer is the way they correspond my paw . Interestingly , even though they market the tools for women , my hubby , who is a large man , favour the tools as well .

I love using cut - and - hold pruners , especially the Short Reach , for pruning rose ( Rosaspp . and cvs . , Zones 3–9 ) . You make your cut , and the tool holds onto the cutting until you pull it away and either drop it where you want it or seize it well with your other deal . It allows you to stand more upright while pruning and eliminate having to reach down or into the bush to retrieve dropped cuttings . This relieves a lot of tension on your back and legal injury to skin and fabric from sticker .

The Telescopic Pruner with Pivot Head is great for cut back tall vines , like a setaceous bougainvillea ( Bougainvilleaspp . and cvs . , Zones 9–12 ) . I have an espaliered Catalina rose chestnut ( Lyonothamnus floribundus , Zones 8–10 ) in my backyard , and this pruner let me to strain over 6 feet to shave the highest bits as well as inscrutable into tight space . I can hold onto the fixings and pull them out past the garden bed .

For tighter situations , where the spellbind feature of the cut - and - hold pruning hook might be too spacious ( approximately 5/8 column inch ) , the Wildflower Seed & Tool By - Pass Pruner ( approximately 1/8 column inch ) can get in there and give you a dainty gash .

Digging tools

Above is my smallish version of a traditional mattock , which is a tool used for both delve and chopping . Where this pecker comes in especially ready to hand is when it is time to add mulch to a garden layer . I like to poke the soil out along all heavy edges before add mulch so that the mulch has somewhere to tuck into , rather than falling off onto the severe surface . This mattock , while slightly larger , is very similar to what I apply .

Alongside the mattock , I also wish to use a hand hoe that has a combination of a hoe leaf blade and grower tines . This comes in especially handy when dig out in rocky ground or beds with gravel mulch . A verson similar to mine is thisFiskarsmodel .

Arm protectors

Do you have any plant in your garden that are a bit scary to get close to ? I have a few of those , Queen ’s binge ( Billbergia nutans , Zones 10–11 ) being the perfect illustration . This bromeliad has razor - crisp teeth along the margins of its leaves that make it specially hazardous to divide without extra protection . None of my long - armed gloves are recollective enough to protect my skin or clothes . I recently discovered thesecanvas arm protectorsthat go pretty far up the arm and stay in place .

— Francesca Corra , APLD , is a across the nation certified landscape painting graphic designer and proprietor of Dirt Diva Designs in Studio City , California .

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marking garden tools

I like to mark my tools with duct tape or nail polish. This lessens the likelihood that they will inadvertently end up in someone else’s toolbox.Photo: Francesca Corra

The Short Reach cut-and-hold pruner from Wildflower Seed & Tool is my favorite for pruning and deadheading roses.Photo: Francesca Corra

long reach pruner

A long-reach cut-and-hold pruner makes easy work of trimming this Catalina ironwood tree espaliered against the garage wall.Photo: Francesca Corra

types of pruners

Every tool has its function. Here you can see the difference in width between the cut-and-hold and the by-pass pruners offered by Wildflower Seed & Tool.Photo: Francesca Corra

cutter mattock