8 Tools You Need for Planting and Maintaining Trees in Your Yard

Trees are not the first type of plants you would think about getting if you want to cultivate new ones on your lawn. Since most varieties take years to grow fully, you need plenty of patience to care for them and see the fruits of your hard work.

However, providers of tree services in Midlothian, Virginia say that having these tall plants on your property offers several benefits, which means you won’t go wrong with growing them.

Trees absorb greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and clean and convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, thereby giving you healthy air to breathe. Additionally, they provide shade and can shelter your house from strong, harsh winds.

The shade the trees provide helps slow down water evaporation in lawns, allowing the plants to absorb more water and stay hydrated longer. Their roots play an important role in preventing soil erosion as well.

With trees surrounding your lawn, you will reduce your energy costs, too. These plants cool the air that goes into your home, thereby minimizing the need to turn on your cooling system too high, or to even use it at all.

Lastly, trees complete the look of your lawn. They make your home more appealing, which increases its market value.

Due to these reasons, growing trees is always a good idea, even if you have to wait longer to see and experience these benefits.

Gardening Tools for Growing and Taking Care of Trees

If you want to plant and maintain several trees around your yard, you need a number of tools to do all the necessary chores correctly.

Here are the eight tools you need for planting and maintaining trees:

1. Shovel and spade

Digging a hole is the first thing you have to do to prepare your ground for planting. You need a round point shovel to do this.

A spade, on the other hand, will help you break the sod and cut through the soil. It is a must-have tool for digging a deeper hole for your new plants.

If you have a rocky yard, consider getting a digging bar as well. This tool helps you remove large, heavy boulders out of the ground so that you can plant your tree in the spot where you want it.

2. Wheelbarrow

Planting a tree means hauling a possibly heavy young tree, several saplings, and a number of tools. Save yourself several trips to and from your gardening shed and your yard by using a wheelbarrow.

A wheelbarrow helps make plenty of gardening chores easier, even jobs that have nothing to do with trees. From hauling bags of fertilizer and mulch to clearing out the leaves on the ground, these tasks can all be done easier with the help of this equipment.

You can also buy a hand-pulled wagon or gardening cart instead of a wheelbarrow if you want something more stable for hauling things around.

3. Pail

Make your job of covering your planted seeds or saplings easier by having a pail by your side while planting.

Shoveling the loose soil directly into your pail instead of dumping it around makes it easier to put it back when you’re done planting. You can also use another bucket to hold the rocks you remove from the ground.

If you don’t have a sprinkler system and your water hose does not reach your newly planted trees, you can use the pail for watering your plants.

4. Sprinkler system or hose

You need to hydrate your new plants regularly to ensure they grow healthily. A sprinkler system or gardening hose helps make this gardening chore go faster.

These tools also ensure your new trees and other plants get enough water regularly.

An automatic sprinkler system is the handiest piece of gardening equipment you can have that ensures all the plants in your yard, both old and new, are properly hydrated. When you have one, you won’t need to take out your hose to water your plants.

For newly planted trees, you need to water them daily for one to three weeks after planting. From three weeks onward, they need to get a good soaking every two to three days.

After 12 weeks, you can water your young trees deeply every week.

5. Hand pruners

 

Once your trees get a little bigger, you need a few tools to maintain them. A pair of pruning shears should be on top of your list.

These tools are used for trimming thin tree twigs or branches.

If you want to touch-up small, thin, live branches, use bypass pruning shears. They look like a pair of scissors that are excellent for trimming stems or twigs at difficult angles.

Anvil pruning shears are the best tools to use for removing dead twigs. They have a straight, knife-like edge that uses a splitting action.

6. Loppers

Loppers function and look like pruning shears. However, they are bigger, have longer handles, and thicker blades.

Because of these features, loppers are used for cutting branches up to two inches thick.

Loppers also come in two types: anvil, which is used for cutting dead limbs, and bypass, which is best for trimming living branches.

This gardening tool is often used for fruit, nut, and flowering trees.

7. Pruning saw

Pruning saws are bigger tools that you can use for trimming large branches up to five inches in diameter.

Pruning saws also come in different types and sizes. A pruning limb saw is best used for branches that are too thick for hand pruners.

If you need to prune branches in tight areas, you have to use a pruning limb saw with a shorter blade.

Heavier branches, on the other hand, require a pruning saw with coarse teeth.

8. Pole pruner

Lastly, when trimming hard-to-reach branches on tall trees, you need to get a pole pruner.

Pole pruners can extend 10 to 15 feet to reach high deadwood. They can be used on any tree and cut branches that are one and a quarter-inch thick.

There are also electric pole pruners that you can consider getting to make the task of pruning high branches go faster.

But whether you have all these essential tools or not, keep in mind that certain tree care tasks, particularly the maintenance-related ones, are best done by professionals.

By getting help from tree service providers in Chesterfield, Virginia, you won’t have to buy more expensive gardening tools. Moreover, you will avoid getting hurt or damaging any property since you have pros who will handle the complex and difficult job of pruning and trimming full-grown trees correctly and safely.