Power Tools You Need For Your Garden

Who doesn't love a beautiful garden full of lush flowers and vegetables, or a perfectly uniformly trimmed lawn? These outdoor landscapes involve hard work, planting, cultivating, weeding, mowing and harvesting. Fortunately, we live in an age where garden power tools can alleviate some of the hard work that is necessary to achieve a beautiful garden and lawn.

Leaf Blower
Come fall, all the lush leaves fade to brown and cover your once lovely lawn. Using a leaf blower will save you time with your rake. The newer models that can both blow and suck are also useful for cleaning up debris in your yard.
Leaf blowers are also available in gas-powered, corded electric and battery models. Leaf blowers use a fair amount of energy for their tasks, so battery-operated leaf blowers have a fairly limited life between charges and are best used if the task at hand is fairly small.
An electric, corded blower is a good choice for home use because it is a compromise between power and weight. These blowers have no emissions when in use, start reliably and easily, and have enough power to move most leaf litter.
When choosing a leaf blower, look for an adjustable air deflector, a convenient on/off switch, a good hand balance to reduce fatigue, a speed control, and a gas operated model with a detonator bulb. For example, a model that can also be used as a vacuum cleaner can come in handy when cleaning garage floors.

Hedge Trimmer
If you have a lot of shrubs and hedges, you'll soon get tired of trimming them one by one by hand. Instead, this is the job of a pair of hedge trimmers, which use two toothed blades that move sideways to quickly clip off branches.

Again, you can choose between gas, corded electric and battery electric models. And, the battery model is best for light use and the gas model for very heavy use. Most homeowners will choose a corded model as a compromise between power and price: both gas and battery models are more expensive. Corded models are also lighter and quieter.
The blade length of a hedge trimmer determines its cutting speed and has an impact on the overall weight of the unit. Home landscape models are usually in the 16-inch to 24-inch range. The distance between the teeth determines the maximum size of branch you can cut; home models are usually 1/2" to 3/4".
On some hedge trimmers, one blade moves while the other remains stationary, while on better models, both blades move, resulting in a faster cut. A wrap-around handle will provide a firm grip, and you'll want a front handle guard and tine extensions to minimize any chance of injury. Choose a hedge trimmer that is well balanced and light enough that it won't tire you out.

Chain Saw
Chain saws are perfect for cutting large branches into smaller, more manageable pieces. These types of saws are also suitable for pruning branches that are too wide for other equipment.
Features to look for on a chain saw include a kickback lever (one danger of the saw is the tendency to kick away from the cut when the going gets tough), a brake to stop the chain when it kicks back, to prevent the chain from being thrown back at the operator if it breaks, and a wrap-around handle for maximum grip.

A good garden and lawn can give great satisfaction, but is very time consuming. Having the right power tools on hand can save you enough time to really enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of your labor.