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Forget about spring cleaning: If you’re a gardener, you know the real cleanup happens in the fall. That’s when you’re busy trimming the trees, chopping down annuals, pruning everything in sight, and getting everything looking tidy before the rain and snow set in.
While there are a bunch of garden tools I use on a year-round basis, fall is when I bring out some specific tools that help get the cleanup job done. Here are 11 of them that belong in your tool shed or garage too.
Electric hand pruner
I’m not that old, but a full day of pruning, particularly pruning hardwoods, will cause my hands to cramp. That’s why these new electric hand pruners are so fantastic. You’d think they wouldn’t be as quick as going by hand, but they keep up nicely, and slice through everything from hydrangea to fruit wood like butter.
Tree branch angle pull
If you have a tree—say a fruit tree—with branches you want to be more horizontal to the ground than upright (making it easier to pick fruit), angle pulls are a real hack. You bend young branches into the form, and it trains them to grow away from the tree, and not upward. I’ve had a lot of success using them—my plum tree now has lots more branches close to the ground, for easier picking.
Electric pole saw
I am a girl who loves a good electric saw. My Ryobi chainsaw is near and dear to my heart, but my electric pole saw is straight-up magic. It means that I, a five-foot tall human, can trim tree limbs that are 20 feet above me. You can extend the saw up and down so it’s only as tall as you need, and it’s a hefty piece of machinery. Most of the year, it lives in the shed, waiting for the weather to turn and for the trees to be ready for pruning. Cleaning up the scruff on my lower branches and shaping the taller limbs has become so deeply satisfying thanks to this tool.
Even though I like to “leave the leaves” because they make damn fine compost and mulch, there’s still a lot more clean up in fall, including weeds, spent plants, dead canes, sunflowers, and other detritus. For this, popup bins are perfect. Use them when you need them, then compact them and stow them away. They’re super lightweight but surprisingly sturdy, so they’re easy to carry around even when packed to the brim.
The right rake for the right job
After many years of trying to find the perfect rake, I now understand there isn’t one. Or not just one: You need different rakes for different purposes. Get a soft plastic rake for leaves and the driveway, sidewalk, and other hard surfaces. Opt for a hard rake for dirt, compost, and rocks. These are my favorite two rakes, but your rake needs may vary.
This giant yard dustpan
When people see this massive dustpan in my yard, they tend to laugh—until they see it in action. Forget trying to muscle leaves and weeds between your rake and gloved hand. Just rake them into the dustpan and dump them. This dustpan allows you to sweep up chips or other detritus in the walkway too; last year I discovered it was so resilient I could even use it to scoop ice from the driveway. My dustpan is always floating around my yard during cleanup season because I use it almost every day.
A damn good wheelbarrow
Moving mulch and compost requires more than buckets—you need a wheelbarrow to be able to move and dump a decent amount of material without tiring yourself out. While there are newer models that move more like wagons, and even electric ones, you simply can’t beat the flexibility of a standard one-wheel wheelbarrow. These things can turn on a dime and get into narrow spaces. Every yard needs one.
Really good loppers
In recent years, electric hand pruners have proliferated, and while I’m a fan (mostly because of the hand cramps that result from manipulating my manual pruners), none of these new electric tools can replace my loppers. These long-handled pruners are perfect for tackling branches, vines, and plants that are too big for hand pruners. The long handles don’t just allow you more reach, they also provide greater leverage for cutting through thick stems and branches. I particularly like this Fiskars model—the grips are comfortable and won’t disintegrate in the sun.
A lawn vacuum
As I said above, I’m in favor of holding onto your leaves. After all, why give away free mulch and compost? Not to mention that leaving them allows the critters that live in the leaves a safe place for winter. But if you insist on getting rid of your leaves, the most effective way I’ve found is to use a vacuum. A number of blowers also now have vacuums that allow you to actually suck the leaves up and mulch them. Then, all you need to do is empty the sack you’ve been carrying on your shoulder. It’s very satisfying, and you do end up with legit mulch that you can throw into the green bin for curbside pickup, compost, or put right back in your yard.
A power washer
Everyone seems to have a power sprayer these days, and I always see them spraying off their driveways, their home exteriors, and their fences. The problem is, they do this in spring or summer—a bad move, in my humble opinion. At that point it’s warm and you’re spraying up microbes from the soil onto your plants. If you do it in fall, whatever you kick up from the soil is probably not going to survive the winter freeze. So spray yourself silly, including your trellises and other garden tools, but do it in colder weather. I have been waiting for temps to drop to use this retractable Giraffe Tools model (I’m a big fan of their retractable hoses).
Slug treatment
Slugs are around in summer, but fall and winter is when I find them especially merciless and endlessly annoying. I have tried every solution I can think of to avoid using a treatment like Sluggo, but there is simply no option as effective. All my beds get treated in the fall, and I repeat it after every rainstorm.
Another solution to manage slugs is with copper tape (and copper nails to secure the tape), stretched around all your garden beds. Slugs won’t cross the copper, and the resulting look can actually be quite nice.