Must-know for beginner gardeners: essential small gardening tools

Before starting the main text, let me first answer yesterday's question: are pots with drainage holes better or those without? The answer is pots with drainage holes. If you usually forget to pour out the excess water, it is easy for the bottom of the pot to remain waterlogged for a long time, causing the plants to die because the roots cannot breathe. They can also be used together with drip trays or decorative cachepots and other leak-proof containers! Be careful to pour out the accumulated water often to prevent root rot. For beginners growing flowers at home, in the daily care of plants, it is necessary to buy some essential small gardening tools to better manage the plants.

1. Brush. Use: for hand-pollinating bulb flowers when they bloom, to improve the seed-setting rate of the flowers.

2. Bamboo skewer. Use: for testing the moisture of the potting soil, and also for transplanting seedlings. How do you use a bamboo skewer to tell whether the potting soil lacks water? Insert the bamboo skewer or a thin wooden stick into the soil and leave it for a while. If no potting soil comes out with it, it means the potting soil is dry and you can water it. If potting soil comes out with it, it means the potting soil is moist and there is no need to water.

3. Spray bottle. Use: when the air is dry, spray the leaves and around the pot to increase humidity and remove dust; it can also be used to spray pesticides and fertilizers to control pests and diseases.

4. Pruning shears. Use: for taking cuttings of stems and leaves, trimming roots, pruning branches, pinching off growing tips, renewing and rejuvenating plants, and so on. For example, when the flowers bloom densely, you can use small scissors to cut away thin branches to keep the plant looking neat and promote its growth.

5. Grafting knife. Use: for grafting fruit trees, bonsai and nursery stock. It is a necessity for propagation work and also an important gardening tool. Sometimes a blade can be used instead.

6. Trowel. Use: for mixing potting soil, and for scooping soil, removing the plant from the pot and adding soil when repotting.

7. Tweezers. Use: for removing dead leaves, taking cuttings, and also for removing pest eggs.

8. Watering can. Use: for daily watering and fertilizing. In modern gardening, watering cans with a long spout and a fine nozzle are commonly used. They usually come in two kinds: tinplate and plastic.

"Seven parts care, three parts pruning" is a common saying in the care of flowers and trees. It means that in growing flowers, trees and green plants, besides the basic management of weeding, pest control, watering and fertilizing, you also need to pay attention to pruning. Pruning can not only remove diseased, pest-infested, dead and crossing branches of flowers and trees, keep the growth of the main branches balanced and form a certain shape, but also control the growing environment of the flowers and trees, improve light conditions and promote the growth and differentiation of flower buds.