My Favorite New Garden Tools of 2017

It’s Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, but since I only have one amaryllis blooming, I thought I’d tell you about a few new tools I got this year that have really helped me out.(I get a small commission from anything you buy when clicking through to Amazon.)

DeWit Welldone Planting Trowel

I had pretty much given up on trowels, because they were hard to push into my clay soil. But this Welldone Planting Trowel by DeWit Tools gives my hori-hori knife a run for the money. The trowel cuts through clay and sod like buttah and feels more comfortable in my hand than the knife. And if you’re trying to dig a hole for a small plant–as opposed to weeding–the trowel is much better at scooping dirt than the knife. Just to be clear, I am talking about the Welldone trowel and not the forged trowel. I don’t have any experience with that one, and they do look pretty similar.

Radius Garden Root Slayer Shovel

I had some garden chores that I was really dreading this fall. They involved planting bulbs and trees in uncultivated parts of our property, such as planting six dozen camassia in the damp meadow and over three hundred daffodils along the roadside ditch. I bought the Root Slayer Shovel hoping it would help, and boy, did it ever! It cuts through sod and small roots and heavy clay as easily as a normal shovel digs in a cultivated garden. If you’ve got a tough digging job, this is the tool you want.


Those are my two new favorites. I wrote about other tools I love last year, and even more things I love here [click].

About that amaryllis

This year I brought all my amaryllis and “Christmas” cacti outside for the summer. The supposed Christmas cacti all had buds on them when I brought them in near the end of October, as did the ‘Cherry Nymph’ amaryllis, which bloomed in November for me.

A week or so ago, ‘Sweet Nymph’ send up a flower stalk, and is now blooming.

I think the next two buds will bloom in time for Christmas.

Fancy that! Somehow I got an amaryllis to rebloom for Christmas.

You may remember I first planted these amaryllis back in 2014. They were sample plants from Longfield Gardens, which still sells them. White Flower Farm offered them, but are sold out. You can also check them out at Amazon.

I hope you enjoy this holiday season, however you celebrate it.

Inspired by the words of Elizabeth Lawrence, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year,” Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers from all over the world publish what is currently blooming in their gardens. Check it out at May Dreams Gardens.

from Cold Climate Gardening http://ift.tt/2yvSpi1