As plants emerge from dormancy in spring, timing is everything. Have the right tools and accessories for your garden. Here is our list of essentials, with tips to will help you work in the garden efficiently throughout the growing season into fall.

A waterproof pair of trail boots or hiking shoes offer comfort, support, and extra protection required for heavier duty tasks like digging in the garden.

A pair of leather garden gloves keep your hands clean while working in the garden. Gauntlet gloves offer longer arm coverage for protection around prickly plants. Pull large weeds by hand with a garden tool to minimize the use of herbicides.

A metal spring rake is great for gathering leaf debris and small twigs. Choose a rake with a good head-to-handle connection, reinforced by a spring steel brace and a two-bolt assembly.

A Hori Hori knife, invented in Japan, is fantastic for digging, sawing, trimming, and transplanting smaller plants. It also has a ruler imprinted on it, handy for measuring planting depths.

A polyethylene drawstring tarp acts like a big, flat dustpan, handy for dumping on and collecting leaves and debris for disposal.

A pair of bypass pruners is best for general pruning needs and should be greased and sharpened prior to use.

A sharp, flat-edged garden spade is a versatile garden tool, to establish a crisp bed edge, prepare beds, plant trees or shrubs, or do major digging in the landscape. It’s available with a long straight handle, a T-shaped or D-shaped handle.

A Dutch hoe has a sharp, heart-shaped head, allowing it to plow just under the soil surface to cultivate and remove weeds. A hoe with a long, 6-foot P-grip handle also lets you hoe quickly, saving your back.

A mulching blade should be put on the lawnmower to shred leaf debris into re-usable leaf compost. Leaves must be dry. Make sure large twigs and branches are collected and disposed of prior to mowing.

Your gloved hands can spread grass seed and peat moss to fill in bare spots on your lawn. Mixing seed with peat moss helps to retain moisture and give better seed-to-soil contact.

A drop type or broadcast spreader helps you apply a pre-emergent weed control application in early spring, which can save a lot of work later in the season when battling weeds in your lawn. However, it should not be applied to lawn areas you have seeded.

Being prepared with the right tools will make your time in the garden a lot easier and bring you great results.