My neighbor Michele called the other day and asked if I’d come over and help her dig up a clump of stubborn irises that had wedged themselves in between the paved driveway and yard. The weather was perfect, early spring warmth lured me out and I grabbed my garden fork, grinning from ear to ear, contemplating dirt and neighborly gardening gossip.

Michele found the outline of the clump before my arrival and even though the ground was moist, digging wasn’t easy. However, our duo-digging efforts proved successful and the clump was removed.

Having the right tool for the above job made the task a little easier. We always hear about new flower varieties, but little is said about new and/or innovative gardening tools. Can improvements be made to the standard pair of Felco or Fiskar pruners you’ve been using for decades? What about the common garden rake or hoe? Can these be made in such a way as to substantially decrease the efforts we expel on raking and hoeing?

While tooling around the floor of the Philly Flower Show last month, I stopped by one of the vendor booths. Fiskars makes several types of hand-held pruners and was introducing a new pair with a “powergear mechanism.” These new pruners have a power gear that increases leverage, making pruning much easier. I tried a pair after seeing the demo and found out for myself that these pruners really do make cutting easier. As for other gardening tools like shovels and trowels, well, that’s another matter.

It must be practically impossible to make improvements to the common garden shovel. I guess you could say that composites have added to the life of shovels, but plastic doesn’t make the actual digging any easier. Albeit the ergonomically designed padded handles are comforting to our palms, the business end of the tool is basically the same as it always was. Keep your wooden shovels in good shape by storing them inside and wiping the handles down with linseed oil and I can almost guarantee that they’ll last just as long as a plastic-handled shovel.

Small hand-held shovels and trowels come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors, and are also made from composite materials. Again, the basic design (the business end) of these tools has remained the same so there’s nothing really new here. Some makers claim that their “swan neck” or “natural radius grip” gardening tools will revolutionize the way we garden when in all actuality their tools just make us look geeky with weird wands in our hands.

I suppose if you’re using one of those newly designed tools and it makes you feel like a better gardener, that’s OK; bless your heart.

TC’s Gardening Tips

ä Shovels with stainless steel blades resist rust, but do not make digging easier. I think they’re too pretty to use anyway, unless you’re having a ribbon cutting ceremony for your new garden.

ä I saw an ad for a pair of gardening gloves that read like an ad for boxing gloves: “4-way stretch spandex, elastic debris cuffs and reinforced fingers with grip dots.” These “gloves” cost 25 bucks! C’mon folks, don’t go for gimmicky stuff. A good pair of leather gloves costs half as much and gives the same, if not more, protection.

ä Be leery of ads that claim something will “last a lifetime,” or ones that say a product “will never rust or bend.” I’ve bent non-bending trowels and buffed rust from them too. Again, proper care and your tools should outlive you.

ä That clump of irises I helped Michele move proved too much for my garden fork. I had to give one last final pry and it snapped into two pieces! I think I’ll check out one of those new-fangled-space-age-composite-stainless-steel-last-a-lifetime-never-rust-or-bend garden forks!

T.C. Conner is a Master Gardener and columnist for Allied News. He can be reached at tc@thewritegardener.com.