5 essential gardening tools and accessories for summer

It’s summer, when your garden should be in its prime, with flower-filled borders, luscious lawn, and no sign of weeds.

Of course, we don’t live in an ideal world but having the right tools and accessories to help you achieve the garden you want can take some of the toil away.

Here are five essentials for the summer gardener, who would rather sit and admire their plot than spend hours working on it.

1.  Weeding hoe, £18, Niwaki

Your plants may have grown with all the rain we’ve had, but so will the weeds. To make the job easier, invest in a one-handed weeding hoe from Japanese lifestyle brand Niwaki which will not only make lighter work of weeding, but will also enable you to get to deeper rooted weeds. The Niwaki hoe – you can buy right-handed and left-handed versions – has a carbon steel blade and pine handle and is also handy for preparing seed rows and drills.

2. Lawn edging knife, £40.19, Bulldog

If you’ve mown your lawn but want the edges to look neat against your flower borders, invest in a half moon edging tool which will help you shape your lawn edges and keep everything neat. The Bulldog Premier lawn edging knife is tougher than many others, forged from one piece of steel for extra strength, allowing clean and easy cuts, and an ash shaft and T handle.

3. Gardena garden waste sack pop-up, from £29.99, Amazon

You always need something to put your green waste in, and if you’re short of storage space, Gardena has just introduced a new pop-up garden waste bag (in medium and large), which is sturdy, rectangular and a good size for tipping your clippings into your brown bin. It also has a handle on the base as well as the sides, to make that job easier. Once you’re done, it folds flat, so is easy to store. Made from more than 70% recycled plastic, it’s UV resistant, frost-proof and comes with a five-year warranty after registration.

4.  Compact Miracle Block Paving Brush, £12.49, Burgon & Ball

If the weeds in your block paving are getting on your nerves and you’re fed up with damaging your kitchen knives to tackle them, have a go with Burgon & Ball’s short-handled block paving brush, a hardwearing wire brush which will help remove weeds and moss from the grooves of your block paving, but also comes with a handy metal weeding blade attached to the brush, which will remove more stubborn weeds.

5. Hozelock auto-reel mobile 35m, RRP £219.99, available from good garden centres, DIY shops and online