IDENTIFIER Garden tools

Ready to throw in the trowel? Feeling fork-ed off when you open the garden shed? Let us help with this handy hoe-down on some favourite gardener’s aids

Hand hoe

So, so nifty (pulls out weeds, breaks up soil and gets general debris out the way) that in ancient Mesopotamia its invention was credited to a god.

Hand fork

The pinnacle of tools. The pointy bits – so useful for going through soil – are technically ‘tines’, from the German ‘zinne’, meaning… ‘pinnacle’.

Pruning knife

Primary pruners until the 19th-century debut of secateurs. A pocket-sized knife has plus points: on-the-go pruning and a pal at picnics, too.

Wooden dib

To dabble in dibbing, you need a dibber (also dubbed a dibble or a dibbler). Easier to use than say, it makes holes in soil, ready for planting.

Raspberry hook

An English (Sheffield, to be precise)-made hook, just ripe for pruning the fruit canes and bushes in your English country garden.

Grass hook

Loved around the world, hooks cut a swathe through garden history, as well as weeds, grasses and cereals – all depending on the blade type.

Trowel

By the 17th century, you could call a spade a spade, and a trowel a towel. It’s then that the latter became a tool in its own right, used for potting and planting.

Bulb planter

A nifty tool to help you plant at just the right depth. In fact, you might say that its invention was a light-bulb moment.

Bamboo rake

Rake by name, but definitely not in behaviour – wooden versions have reliably weeded and tidied gardens since at least 1100 BC China.

These tools are all available to buy from Objects of Use (objectsofuse.com), an Oxford shop selling an array of ‘beautiful tools made with practised skill, using low-impact methods and materials’.