Gardening Hacks: Must Have Tools and Tricks to Save You Time and Effort in The Yard

What’s that old motto? “Garden smarter, not harder?” Ok, so the original saying might not have been about gardening, but ultimately, the same principles still apply.

Why line yourself up for hours of backbreaking hard labour when your tools, if carefully chosen, can do the hard yards for you?

Basic Power Tools to Get The Job Done Faster

Leaf Blower

If you don’t own a leaf blower, you should. Instead of spending countless hours of sweeping and raking, you could just whip out your leaf blower and blast those leaves into oblivion, Terminator style.

You can also use your leaf blower to get leaves and debris out of nooks and crannies that your broom or rake can’t quite reach.

Chainsaw

You might have the idea that chainsaws are reserved for lumberjacks out in the woods. But the truth is, a chainsaw can come in handy even in a suburban setting. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want an excuse to fire up one of these bad boys and chop stuff up?

Even if you don’t have trees that need trimming, chainsaws can be used for garden jobs like cutting landscaping sleepers or even cutting up firewood.

One thing’s for sure, whatever you need to cut, you’ll do it a whole lot faster than with a hand saw or axe.

Hedge Trimmer

Love the look of a neatly trimmed hedge? But haven’t got the time or inclination to snip, snip, snip it all with your secateurs or shears? Sounds like what you need is a powered hedge trimmer.

Then with a wave or your wand…er, trimmer, you’ll have immaculately trimmed hedges that will be the talk of your street.

As well as keeping your hedges in order, a hedge trimmer can be used to channel your inner sculptor and turn your trees into topiaries, or, simply to give your shrubs a super-quick spring haircut to encourage new growth.

Brush Cutter

If you live on a high maintenance block or a semi-rural property, a brush cutter can become your new best friend. You can use it to tidy areas of long grass and weeds that aren’t easily reached with your mower, or to quickly, and efficiently, trim all your garden edges.

Ride-on mower

The ultimate power tool, a ride on mower can slash (see what we did there) your mowing time if you live on large block. And of course, if you live on acreage, owning one is pretty much essential.

Win Endeavour Foundation’s picture-perfect Prize Home at Valdora and you’ll also win all of the above STIHL power tools and more! The $1.4 million first prize will include all these power tools and more.

Unexpected Garden ‘Must Haves’

Even if you’re new to gardening, most people will know that you would need the basics like a shovel, gloves, secateurs, and a rake. But there are also a few inexpensive but invaluable items to add to the list:

Heavy-duty Tarp

You’ll never know how useful a tarp can be until you own one. Forget the wheelbarrow. Instead, when you need to lay a heavy-duty tarp on the ground and then pile it with raked leaves, cuttings, or other garden waste. It’s a great way to move a large quality of waste/mulch around your yard but it generally works best with relatively light things. You probably won’t get too far if you pile it with rocks!

Bucket Organiser

Otherwise known as a Bucket Boss, a bucket organiser is fantastic for organising your smaller tools so that you can always have them on hand. Slipping over a standard bucket, a bucket organiser has lots of pockets around the outside for all of your garden bits and pieces. Best of all, you can easily carry it to wherever you’re working in the garden.

Zip ties

It’s always worth keeping a few of these lying around. You just never know when they’ll come in handy. You can use them for tying a plant up to a stake, or even holding together a DIY trellis.

PVC Pipe

Get your hands on a few lengths of recycled PVC pipe and you will find endless uses for it in your garden.

Mount it horizontally and cut holes in the top for a clever hydroponic garden set up. Or mount it vertically and cut holes down the side to create an impressive vertical garden.

Or if you want to get something heavy (like a stone block) from A to B, lay a few lengths on the ground and use it to roll the item wherever you want it to go, without straining your back.

And last-but-not-least, you can also use a piece of PVC pipe to fertiliser your plants. When you want to get your fertiliser right down into the base of a bushy shrub, simply poke a PVC pipe into the spot where’s you’d like the fertiliser to go and send it down.

Vinegar

For an environmentally friendly weed killer, try vinegar. Put it in a spray bottle to spray your weeds or else pour it directly onto the weeds you want to kill.

Dish detergent

This is another relatively non-toxic way to deal with pests. For example, if you see signs of sooty mould (that powdery black fungus that you’ll sometimes see covering leaves and branches on your trees) on your fruit trees, mix up a bucket of warm water and dish detergent and pour it over the affected areas.

You can also combine some dish detergent with vinegar to make a quite effective weed killer.

Get on The Easy Road to Gardening

Get yourself set up with our garden gear suggestions and you’ll be on the road to gardening easy street.

To see just what you might be able to win in Endeavour Foundation’s picture-perfect Prize Home package, head to Valdora and explore all that the home has to offer. Find out address details and opening times here.

Buy Tickets