Must-have gardening tools

There's a huge range of gardening tools nowadays – you'll find most of them on display in our garden centre. Though they're all great to have, there are some you'll use every time you go in the garden.

Digging spade: makes heavy-duty soil turning jobs easy. Lightweight, easy-clean stainless steel blades are best.

Garden fork: great for digging stony soils, mixing in a layer of compost, or weeding larger areas.

Hand trowel: essential for transplanting seedlings and planting bulbs: blades marked with measurements make judging planting distances easy

Weeding fork: careful weeding among established plants needs an easy-to-manoeuvre hand fork.

Secateurs: back-pocket essentials for all gardeners at pruning time, but also for dead-heading and taking cuttings

Watering can: from one-litre seedling cans to 10-litre behemoths, a watering can makes sure plants never go short

Wheelbarrow: the garden workhorse, whether you're pruning roses, barrowing muck or clearing a patch of weeds

Dutch hoe: hoe off weed seedlings once a week and you'll always have a pristine plot

Rake: use for raking spring seedbeds, levelling soil in summer, or gathering autumn leaves to make leaf mould soil conditioner.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information about choosing the tools which are right for you.