I recently attended a Winter Garden Tools and Accessories online seminar given by a local gardening center.
Their first tip is, while working in the winter garden, be sure to wear a good gardening hat. The winter sun’s rays are stronger than you think and it is best to protect the face, head, and neck areas. Gardening gloves are also a needed accessory to keep your hands in good shape. The Fox Gloves brand was mentioned but I don’t own a pair of these gloves, so I can not give any recommendations. Also, In the spring, when the all the weeds come up, a plastic kneeler helps with kneeling between the flower beds.
Gardening Tools
Interestingly, a Dewit Cape Cod weeding tool is mentioned as a favorite tool of the gardening duo. It has sort of a bent angle to it. The one we own, is used for weeding the strawberry patch.
While looking through my gardening shed, I have round shovels for planting or transplanting plants or shrubs.
Square shovels are for great for grass and flower bed edging and for other neat cuts. They can also be used for cutting transplants in two.
Mattock are picks used for heavy-duty garden work like digging out rocks, stumps, roots, or working with hard clay soil. Yes, I have red clay soil in my garden. I picked up this mattock at a yard sales and it has been used many, many times.
This mattock is covered with red clay soil from recently digging out rocks around my lilac bush. Since it is winter and the ground is very wet, the rocks were easier to remove.
Lilac Bush Pruning
Over the many years, I haven’t really pruned back my lilac bush. So, It was completely overgrown, wild and easily over eight feet tall.
This year, I decided to prune the whole thing back to a shrub size. Because, once it starts to grow in the spring, it is impossible to get near to it to do much trimming.
Many of online sites, however, disagree with my timing for trimming my lilac in that I’m cutting off all the new growth and blossoms. Also, the whole plant should not be trimmed at the same time. So, I am not recommending doing this, but I’ll keep you posted on the new growth of my lilac shrub.
This year, I want to get it down to a reasonable size, so I’m being drastic with my late winter pruning. Please check with your local gardening center or online for tips on trimming lilac bushes.
We also used a mattock to pull out some rocks which were at the base of the lilac bush.
After a severe pruning, I can see new growth on some of the stems.
What I Learned about Winter Garden Tools
The main thing I learned is that I need to keep my tools free of dirt and mud.
Also, winter garden tools, such as shovels and mattocks, need to be sharpened with a file to keep the cutting edges crisp. I’ve never done this before, but I’ll be sure to give it a try this year.
Lastly, follow your garden center’s recommendations for pruning lilac bushes.
A Special Thank You to Peg Bier and David Yost of Merrifield Garden fame for their educational online gardening seminars.
Resource Sites: Wikipedia