![Garden tools](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Garden_tools.jpg)
A garden tool is any one of many tools made for
gardening
Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, frui ...
and
landscaping
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including the following:
# Living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly called gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal ...
, which overlap with the range of tools made for
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
and
horticulture
Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...
. Garden tools can be divided into
hand tool
A hand tool is any tool that is powered by hand rather than a motor. Categories of hand tools include wrenches, pliers, cutters, files, striking tools, struck or hammered tools, screwdrivers, vises, clamps, snips, hacksaws, drills, an ...
s and
power tool
A power tool is a tool that is actuated by an additional power source and mechanism other than the solely manual labor used with hand tools. The most common types of power tools use electric motors. Internal combustion engines and compressed ...
s.
Hand tools
Today's garden tools originated with the earliest agricultural implements used by humans. Examples include the
hatchet
A hatchet (from the Old French , a diminutive form of ''hache'', ' axe' of Germanic origin) is a single-handed striking tool with a sharp blade on one side used to cut and split wood, and a hammerhead on the other side. Hatchets may also be us ...
,
axe
An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has ma ...
,
sickle
A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...
,
scythe
A scythe ( ) is an agriculture, agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or Harvest, harvesting Crop, crops. It is historically used to cut down or reaping, reap edible grain, grains, before the process of threshing. The scythe has been largely ...
,
pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...
,
spade
A spade is a tool primarily for digging consisting of a long handle and blade, typically with the blade narrower and flatter than the common shovel. Early spades were made of riven wood or of animal bones (often shoulder blades). After the a ...
,
shovel
A shovel is a tool used for digging, lifting, and moving bulk materials, such as soil, coal, gravel, snow, sand, or ore.
Most shovels are hand tools consisting of a broad blade fixed to a medium-length handle. Shovel blades are usually made o ...
,
trowel
A trowel is a small hand tool used for digging, applying, smoothing, or moving small amounts of viscous or particulate material. Common varieties include the masonry trowel, garden trowel, and float trowel.
A power trowel is a much larger gas ...
,
hoe
Hoe or HOE may refer to:
* Hoe (food), a Korean dish of raw fish
* Hoe (letter), a Georgian letter
* Hoe (tool), a hand tool used in gardening and farming
** Hoe-farming, a term for primitive forms of agriculture
* Backhoe, a piece of excavating ...
,
fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...
, and
rake
Rake may refer to:
* Rake (stock character), a man habituated to immoral conduct
* Rake (theatre), the artificial slope of a theatre stage
Science and technology
* Rake receiver, a radio receiver
* Rake (geology), the angle between a feature on a ...
. In some places, the
machete
Older machete from Latin America
Gerber machete/saw combo
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is common.
The earliest tools were made variously of wood, flint, metal, tin, and bone. The development of
metalworking
Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...
, first in
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...
and later in
bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...
,
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...
, and
steel
Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistan ...
, produced today's durable tools, including such efficient cutting tools as
pruning shears
Pruning shears, also called hand pruners (in American English), or secateurs (in British English), are a type of scissors for use on plants. They are strong enough to prune hard branches of trees and shrubs, sometimes up to two centimetres thic ...
(secateurs – for example
anvil pruners
Pruning shears, also called hand pruners (in American English), or secateurs (in British English), are a type of scissors for use on plants. They are strong enough to prune hard branches of trees and shrubs, sometimes up to two centimetres thic ...
),
grass shears, and
loppers.
Increasing use of modern
alloy
An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductili ...
s allows many tools to be made both stronger and lighter, making them more durable and easier to use.
Ergonomics
Some modern tool designs reflect
ergonomic
Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...
considerations, being designed to induce less stress on the human body in use. The most efficient tools keep the body in a neutral position to help reduce the stress on joints and muscles, which also require less energy to use.
Power tools
The first
power tool
A power tool is a tool that is actuated by an additional power source and mechanism other than the solely manual labor used with hand tools. The most common types of power tools use electric motors. Internal combustion engines and compressed ...
to become popular with gardeners was the
lawn mower
A lawn mower (also known as a mower, grass cutter or lawnmower) is a device utilizing one or more revolving blades (or a reel) to cut a grass surface to an even height. The height of the cut grass may be fixed by the design of the mower, but g ...
. It was followed by various
cultivator
A cultivator is a piece of agricultural equipment used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to frames with ''teeth'' (also called ''shanks'') that pierce the soil as they are dragged through it linearly. It also refers to ma ...
s (such as the
rototiller
A cultivator is a piece of agricultural equipment used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to frames with ''teeth'' (also called ''shanks'') that pierce the soil as they are dragged through it linearly. It also refers to mac ...
),
string trimmer
A string trimmer, also known by the portmanteau strimmer and the trademarks Weedwacker, Weed eater and Whipper Snipper. is a garden tool for cutting grass, small weeds, and groundcover. It uses a whirling monofilament line instead of a blad ...
s,
hedge trimmer
A hedge trimmer, shrub trimmer, or bush trimmerAs with the term ''scissors'', the plural terms "hedge trimmers" + c. are often used for individual trimming tools. is a gardening tool or machine used for trimming (cutting, pruning) hedges or so ...
s,
lawn aerator
A lawn aerator is a garden tool designed to create holes in the soil in order to help lawn grasses grow. In compacted lawns, aeration improves soil drainage and encourages worms, microfauna and microflora which require oxygen.
Lawn problems
Law ...
s,
lawn sweeper
A lawn sweeper, also known as a leaf sweeper or lawn brush, is a garden tool for the mechanical removal of debris, such as fallen leaves, pine needles, twigs, grass clippings or litter, from a lawn or paved area. Lawn sweepers operate via a rotat ...
s,
trenchers,
leaf blower
A leaf blower, commonly known as a blower, is a device that propels air out of a nozzle to move debris such as leaves and grass cuttings. Leaf blowers are powered by electric or gasoline motors. Gasoline models have traditionally been two-stro ...
s,
chainsaw
A chainsaw (or chain saw) is a portable gasoline-, electric-, or battery-powered saw that cuts with a set of teeth attached to a rotating chain driven along a guide bar. It is used in activities such as tree felling, limbing, bucking, pru ...
s,
mini-tractors, and others.
Power tools have resulted in the transition from manual labor to large-scale
mechanised agriculture
Mechanised agriculture or agricultural mechanization is the use of machinery and equipment, ranging from simple and basic hand tools to more sophisticated, motorized equipment and machinery, to perform agricultural operations. In modern times, po ...
.
Environmental impact
The exhaust fumes from primarily
2-stroke
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of t ...
gas-powered equipment is a source of air pollution.
Lawn Equipment Improving Air Quality in Your Community
/ref> US emission standard
United States vehicle emission standards are set through a combination of legislative mandates enacted by Congress through Clean Air Act (CAA) amendments from 1970 onwards, and executive regulations managed nationally by the Environmental Protect ...
s specifically limit emissions from these small engines, which are being forced to become more efficient and less polluting.
See also
* Agricultural machinery
Agricultural machinery relates to the mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractors and the countless kinds of farm implements that the ...
* Antique tool
* Groundskeeping Equipment
Groundskeeping is the activity of tending an area of land for aesthetic or functional purposes, typically in an institutional setting. It includes mowing grass, trimming hedges, pulling weeds, planting flowers, etc. The U.S. Department of Labor e ...
References
External links
BBC How to be a gardener
{{garden tools
*