The tools we use
Sustainable gardening
In most suburban neighbourhoods, it’s pretty common to hear the gardener long before you see them disappearing in a cloud of leaves and dust. The drive for efficiency has turned gardening, like everything else, into a mechanised money machine. Where is the care?
Forget Me Not Gardening is all about low impact gardening. We look for ways to work with the environment to reduce noise, pollution and waste. We care about the safety and wellbeing of both people and planet.
Why we love hand tools
There are many surprising benefits of working with hand tools:
- Greater control and precision
- Less damage to plants
- Enhanced safety
- Reduced running costs (maintenance, parts, repairs)
- No noise
- Low emissions from both manufacture and use of equipment (fuel, batteries and electricity)
- Ergonomic for the body – lighter equipment, use of whole-body movements
- Opportunity for work to be a meditative, mindful practice
Where possible, Forget Me Not Gardening prefers to use hand tools, especially for such things as weeding and pruning. Don’t worry, it’s not a fixed rule. We realise there are times when power tools are far more practical.
The benefits of battery powered tools
Some jobs are just quicker and simpler with power tools. When time is a factor, particularly for large volume jobs, we will combine hand tools with task specific power tools. We use re-chargeable battery-operated equipment for specific tasks, such as:
- Lawn mowing and edging
- Large volume overgrowth
- Some hedge trimming
Battery powered tools have lots of advantages to traditional petrol operated equipment:
- Low noise (easier on your ears and ours!)
- No fumes
- Cheaper running costs (no fuel)
- Less polluting to the environment
- Easier to clean and maintain
- Generally lightweight
We prefer to rake leaves by hand, but where blowing will make the job quicker and neater, we do use a low noise electric blower. We promise to pick up debris when we’re done.
Garden weeds and pests are undoubtedly annoying. Chemical sprays may seem like an easy solution for unwanted pests. But pesticides and weed kill can have some unintended risks of their own:
- Contaminate soil, waterways and habitats for good bugs and wildlife
- Accidental off-target damage to surrounding plants
- Health side effects for humans
- Develop resistance over time, requiring stronger concentrations of poison
Forget Me Not Gardening prefers to eliminate these risks by choosing natural alternatives to weed and pest management. Some of the methods we recommend include:
- Natural weed suppression with cardboard and mulch
- Hardy ground covers
- Diversity of plants to attract beneficial bugs to the garden (they eat the bad guys!)
- Natural solutions, such as white oil, eco oil or Neem oil
- Changes to soil conditions or recommendations for more suitable plants
A healthy eco-system has its own natural control methods to keep things in check. We do our best to work with the environment to enhance a garden’s natural resilience. It’s all about embracing a little imperfection along the way.
Do you want a tread softly gardener?
When you hire a gardener, you want to know they are leaving it better than it was before. Forget Me Not Gardening believes it’s possible to run a business that is gentle to the earth. If that’s you too, then you’ve come to the right place.