Choosing the right shovel for your garden: What is the type of shovel that works for best gardening?
As one sunny day you decide to make a quick visit to the garden store to get yourself a shovel for gardening chores, the multitude of shovels will make you feel dizzy and confused. Getting your hands on the right pair of shovels is not as easy as it seems. Choosing a comfortable and good-quality shovel will make a huge difference between a good day in the garden and a day of inefficient misery with greens.
If you ever are in a dilemma about “ Which specific shovel do you need for your gardening?”, I assure you that at the end of this article, your question will be answered. So, stick to it.
Choosing the right shovel for your garden: What is the type of shovel that works for best gardening?
So basically to know which one to choose, you will require some basic knowledge about some general type of shovel available in the store. Let’s begin with the type of shovel.
Types of Garden shovel
There is a wide range of varieties of shovels. Fortunately, most gardening shovels have a common quality and are intended to be used for similar specific garden tasks.
Well, without further ado let’s learn about some common garden shovels and their use
1. Round point digging shovel
This shovel has a considerably strong blade with a point that helps to make a clean cut into the soil. That’s why this shovel is ideal for some serious garden-digging tasks. It has a sharp edge that easily breaks up the hard soils.
2. Square point shovel.
This shovel is specially designed for lifting and moving loose garden materials, sand, topsoil, and debris around. More to this square point shovel can also be helpful while shaping the beds of your garden, mixing the concrete, and scraping stubborn material and dirt off your driveway. This is a perfect candidate for scooping around the dirt and materials you want off of your garden.
Simply, It’s a picker rather than a digger.
3. Trenching or irrigation shovel
It is another important specialized garden tool built for digging specific types of trenches in your garden, or yard without disturbing the plants nearby. It has a long and narrow blade and a seriously pointed tip which is usually 4-6 inches. These are built to make a narrow trench and are used while lying irrigation pipes in a garden. It can also be used for transplanting or removing individual plants too.
4. Drain spade
Drain spades are a special type of spade that has a round tip and curved edge finely built for transplanting or clearing out debris from trenches. This spade is absolutely ideal for digging a narrow trench or transplanting rooted mature shrubs, flowers, and perennials without causing any harm to them. For this reason, many gardeners including me like to refer to this spade as a sharpshooter shovel or a transplanting shovel.
5. Scoop shovel
Scoop shovels are designed to move materials around the garden. More to this, it is commonly used for moving or spreading mulch, compost, snow, grain, gravel, and similar materials around your garden.
It has a wide width, concave blade, and flat tips perfectly fit for lifting and moving materials.
6. Trowel
The trowel is a small handheld spade. The small blade with a pointed tip makes this a perfect candidate for transplanting young seedlings and small flowers in your garden. Furthermore, it can be of help whenever you decide to make some changes in your garden by repotting and adding some flowers to your garden bed. The fact that it perfectly fits inside a hand makes it the right tool to choose for comfort and efficiency in gardening chores.
No professional gardener would deny the significance of trowels in gardening.
How to choose the best garden shovel for your garden?
Now that you are familiar with the most general type of garden shovel, you must now be more nervous about choosing a perfect shovel for your specific unique garden. Don’t panic yet, I’ve come to your aid and will do so. So, while talking about choosing a perfect shovel for you, there are some chief features to take into consideration. Look for an ergonomic handle. It will make sure that you dwell on your garden work for much longer for it is most likely to prevent pain and aches associated with tiresome gardening work.
Don’t snap up and invest in the shovel unless it has a rubberized cushion grip. Dong gardening chores are surely about turned hands and some nasty sweat. You wouldn’t want to have trouble with constant slipping and sliding of the shovel because of sweat and moisture, do you? Getting a rubberized cousin grip will save you all this trouble.
Similarly, get your hands on durable material because you are not buying a gardening tool every season, are you? Choose something that stays by your side for a long. For instance, choose a durable material like aluminum and stainless steel. They do not rust so quickly. Lastly, check for a warranty on the tool you buy. Trust me you wouldn’t want to buy a tool that spoils quickly. Try to get quality tools from trusted garden stores or hardware stores around.
Hopefully, by now you are all aware of what kind of shovel you need and are ready to visit the store to get your first pair of shovels. Hopefully, you will get yourself the right pair. Go for it.
Happy gardening!
