New Year’s in the garden is the same as in the house, same as in the heart. It is full of renewed purpose, determined resolutions and good intentions. For me – and for many – this resolve is all about setting things in order. Not from any grandiose hope for perfection, but simply as a way to at least start things off on the right foot. Before the winter pruning of roses, grape vines and fruit trees, before top-dressing vegetable beds or herbaceous borders with fresh compost, before the spraying of dormant oils, “starting off on the right foot” for me means sorting out my tools.
Late December and January will include cleaning, sharpening and – as needed or if possible – mending my favorite tools. We gardeners are particular about our tools and every gardener I know has their own set of favorites. Mine include the following:
Soft leather gloves. I use my gloves a lot this time of year when it is wet and cold and I am doing a lot of pruning of prickly pokey things like roses, shrubs and ornamental grasses. I do like the looks of the new mesh-fabric, reinforced gloves being produced now, but I do not like the feeling of wet hands, so I am a bit wary of them. I go through the fingers of any gloves within one or two seasons and as gloves are impossible to mend, Santa was a good guy and brought me two new pairs – one soft leather and one synthetic mesh fabric, both from a company called Womans Work. I will let you know how they work out.
Clippers. I have two sets that I use all the time – Felco #2 by-pass or secateur clippers that I have had for going on 11 years, and another newer set of Felco #310, which are more delicately bladed for finer trim work. Recommended to me by Wyntour Gardens in Redding this past summer, I am loving them. They were particularly useful when it came time to prune the little branches on my Japanese Maples. Felco tools have bright red handles that are easy to spot if you leave them lying about in the garden somewhere. No matter what color your tools or their handles, it is easy enough to mark them brightly with paint for the same result.
Hand-held circlehoe. This elegant little tool with its approximately 4 inch diameter steel circle head was designed in 1997, by Ralph Henningsen of southern Oregon. One side of the circle is honed and sharp for digging, and the other is flat and dull for smoothing cultivated areas. Circlehoes are available as long handled tools as well, but I use the hand-held variety and I 
use it for everything from weeding and planting to cultivating even around established plants. Mine was a gift to me years ago, but I know they are for sale at good local nurseries, including Wyntour Gardens in Redding, and in Red Bluff at Humble Bee Cottage and the Red Bluff Garden Center.
Rabbiting Spade. This long narrow spade with its D shaped handle and relatively diminutive width and length is easy to handle and useful for any digging, but especially for transplanting or digging in tight spaces. Mine was made by Spear & Jackson and purchased at Smith & Hawken many years ago. Smith & Hawken no longer sell these spades, but ones like them are available at good local hardware stores or on-line at www.gardenhardware.com or www.spear-and-jackson.com.
A small folding hand-saw and a soft metal rake. Both of these tools are indispensable to me and used throughout the year in the garden. The folding hand-saw does most pruning for which my hand clippers are too small, and it does the annual honors of cutting the Christmas tree. My rake is in need of a new wooden handle after its original handle snapped in this past leaf-raking season. A new wooden handle is easy to find at local hardware stores and the old one – attached with a wing-nut device – is easily replaced.
With these 7 tools I can accomplish almost any gardening task. But well-made tools are not cheap and basic cleaning and maintenance on at least an annual basis will help your tools to last longer and work more effectively. Some people clean their tools after every use – but I am not one of them, probably because I generally leave the garden at a dead-run having just remembered that I left something on the stove or in the oven for my children’s dinner. Regular cleaning is very important when and if you are working with plants that are prone to diseases of any kind. For instance, when I am pruning my roses, I try to wipe my clippers down with alcohol between each plant. My Aunt Bettina, head-gardener at the historic Ash Lawn, in Charlottesville, Va taught me that the little packets of alcohol soaked cloths you get at the hospital or in first-aid kits are really good for this. Otherwise, an annual or semi-annual scrub down with water, followed by a thorough drying and then a light coat of oil does a nice job. In colder parts of the North State it is good to put our tools away for the winter clean and protected. In warmer portions of the region, it is good to go into our wet muddy winter with clean and protected tools. Some people like to use a light-weight motor oil for this, but I don’t like the idea of motor oil in my garden, and I don’t have a lot of tools or machinery, so I generally use whatever food grade oil I have on hand: canola oil, olive 
oil or linseed oil. Some people recommend keeping a bucket of oil-soaked sand in the tool shed for plunging your tools into – thereby keeping them both cleaned and oiled. I like this idea, but worry that my bucket of sand will too soon devolve into a bucket of muck and then what do I do with it? So I have not tried this trick. On your smaller tools, a quick scrub with some steel wool and a quick pass with an oiled or wet sharpening stone will clean and tune up the edges. Once blades are cleaned and sharpened, run an oiled cloth over the wooden handles of rakes and spades – sanding them a little as needed to keep down splinters. Feel send photos and descriptions of your favorite tools to jennifer@jewellgarden.com and I will share them in the next monthly calendar.
The calendar of garden related events in the North State in January reflects this almost universal impulse toward a fresh start, putting things in order and getting tidied up. Thankfully, it also reflects our love of gardening. Jan. 3 the Butte Rose Society hosted its annual rose pruning demonstration at the Historic Stansbury House in downtown Chico. Jan. 11 is the full moon, the passing of which, according to my grandmother, meant it was now safe to prune the grape vines. Jan. 17 – 19 the California Native Plant Society is hosting a Conservation Conference titled Strategies and Solutions, with presentations and workshops on all aspects of our native plants and the challenges they and their habitats face. In Redding, throughout the month, Wyntour Gardens is hosting numerous seminars on pruning fruit trees, roses, and bare root trees. In Chico Jan. 22 – 25, the annual Snow Goose Festival celebrates the incredible array of bird life that graces our region and gardens with workshops, field trips and exhibitions.
For many more garden-related events, including those at the McConnell Arboretum & Gardens and those offered by the Redding, Red Bluff and Chico area Garden Clubs, Cal Native Plant Societies and local nurseries in January, click here for the monthly Calendar of Events. If you would like to see additional events listed, send me an email with pertinent information: Jennifer@jewellgarden.com.
Remember – good things come to those who garden. Until next week, enjoy life, the New Year and January’s fresh start in your North State Garden.
In a North State Garden is an educational outreach program of the Northern California Natural History Museum and a co-production of North State Public Radio. All rights reserved jewellgarden.com; all photos copyright Jennifer Jewell.
In a North State Garden is a radio- and web-based outreach program of the Northern California Natural History Museum, in Chico, Calif. The mission of In a North State Garden is to celebrate the art, craft and science of home gardening in California’s North State region. The program is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell. To read more from In A North State Garden or to listen to the podcasts aired on KCHO/KFPR radio, click on jewellgarden.com.
