Dig This - purchasing watering cans, pruners, and other gardening tools - Buyers Guide

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, March, 2000 by Elizabeth Razzi, James Ramage

Odds & ends

SIZE ALSO factors into your choice of a trowel. Walker, who does a lot of planting I in large pots, prefers a long, skinny transplanting trowel. She complains that regular trowels are too big and put too much pressure on her hand. If she needs more leverage than what she can get with the slender trowel, she can always use her small shovel.

Even though it's a small tool, you should look for the same hallmarks of strength in a trowel that you look for in a shovel or spade. Gardener's Supply sells a full-size, wood-handle trowel with a 6-inch forged-steel blade for $18.50. We found slender trowels with blades made of aluminum or less-durable stamped metal--good for transplanting only priced at about $5.

A "grubbing" or "cutter" mattock is Walker's other must-have tool for digging. The mattock is like a pick with a blade on one end. (Some varieties have a pick or cultivator head opposite the blade.) It's not a glamorous tool, but a few whacks with a mattock will cut through troublesome roots or thatch quickly. A.M. Leonard sells a cutter mattock with a 14-inch handle for $14.53.

Several pros said that fierce-looking Japanese knives were among their favorite gardening tools for digging and cutting. These "soil" or "grub" knives feature a wooden handle and a sturdy 6-inch blade that is serrated on one side and smooth on the other. "It's an unbelievably handy thing," says Butterfield. "I use it for dividing plants, weeding and cutting twine." A soil knife is $21.41 in the A.M. Leonard catalog. If nothing else, it will save you from blame for ruining your good steak knives.

WHAT'S THE METTLE OF METALS?

Forged steel makes the strongest blades and can hold the sharpest edge. Extra-strong, high-carbon steel is heated, then shaped into the blade of a shovel, hoe or knife-thicker where it must hold up to stress and thinner where you need to keep a sharp edge.

Stamped steel is used for the blades of less-expensive tools. The blade shape is stamped out of a sheet of steel of uniform thickness. It is more likely to bend or chip than forged steel.

Stainless steel is made by adding chrome and nickel to the steel, making it: more resistant to rust and stains. Some pros insist, however, that they cannot keep as sharp an edge on a stainless-steel tool as on a carbon-steel one. Other metals, such as aluminum, are also more rust resistant but are not as strong as forged steel.

Galvanized steel is made by coating steel with zinc to make it rust resistant and suitable for holding water or standing up to the weather.

CONTACTS

* A.M. Leonard (800-543-8955; www.amleo.com).

* Gardener's Supply Co. (800-863-1700; www.gardeners.com).

* Smith & Hawken (800-776-3336; www.smithandhawken.com).

* Le Prince Jardinier, Loire, France (phone: 0]1-33-2-47-50-89-34; e-mail: le.prince.jardinierr@ wanadoo.fr).

* Netique.com (www.netique.com) carries some items mentioned here.