Choosing the Right Rake for Your Garden

Garden rakes is one of the most important tools to collect leaves and other garden debris. We could use it for preparing the soil to plant your garden. Garden rake can clean all kinds of debris from the lawn. In the ancient time, these rakes were being used to rake leaves during the winter. But in modern socity, rake is the ideal tool for reaching under bushes and digging out all the decaying leaves, twigs, debris and junk that get stuck in there.

Following are the types of garden rakes we often use:

Sweep Rake

- Used like a broom to pull leaves and debris past the user.
- Fan-shaped.
- May have a straight or round leading edge.

Straight Edge Rake

- Used to pull leaves and debris toward the user.
- Also used to gather up heavy trash such as sticks and stones.

Landscape Rake

- Has a wide head braced with brackets attached to the handle.
- Used for spreading dirt, gravel and sand.

Shrub Rake

- Used to rake around small plants and shrubs
- The flexible tines may have a straight or rounded edge.

Bamboo Rake

- Lightweight and inexpensive
- Used to gather light debris such as dry leaves or grass.
- Teeth should be evenly bent for best raking results.

Level Head Garden Rake

- Has a level head set close to the handle.
- Used to break up and smooth soil after it has been spaded and cultivated.
- Has sharp, curved steel teeth to pulverize dirt clods.
- The straight back is good for leveling the soil for planting.

Thatching Rake

- Used to remove thatch and dead grass from the lawn.
- Pointed on one side for pulling and rounded on the other for pushing.
- The wheeled version rolls along the ground. It digs as it is pushed forward and cleans itself of debris as it is pulled backwards.
- The half-moon version does not have wheels. The user drags it along the ground. The pull stroke digs up the thatch, while the push stroke cleans.

Bow Head Garden Rake

- Rake head is attached to the handle with a long, curved bows extending from each end of the head.
- Handles are usually 48" to 54" long.
- Used to break up and smooth soil after it has been spaded and cultivated.
- Has sharp, curved steel teeth to pulverize dirt clods.
- The straight back is good for leveling the soil for planting.

At last, I will introduce some tips for choosing rakes. You'd better look for one with a tension bar across the tines, which distributes stress and prevents the tines from twisting and breaking; avoid plastic rakes, which break quite easily. There are also smaller rakes, some are small enough to be held with one hand, that are effective for tight or hard-to-reach spots.