Useful tips for storing gardening tools and equipment.
Are you an avid gardener or the owner of a landscaping, gardening or lawn care business? If you are, you’ll know how much space bulky gardening equipment can gobble up when it’s not in use.
As a worst case scenario, your chainsaws, hacksaws, leaf blowers, lawn mowers and long-handled tools may have to take precedence over a motor vehicle in your garage.
At the very least, you’ll be ducking and diving to avoid the sharpened edges, cut-throat blades and coiled hosepipes left lying about the place.
If you have serious space constraints as a small business, or simply want to instil a bit of order in your gardening equipment storage techniques, here are a few tool-specific tips and tricks that’ll make your life as a gardener that much easier, and more fulfilling:
How to store long- and short-handled gardening tools
Rakes, hoes, spades and forks, along with long-handled pruning shears and loppers, are best stored hanging up. You can use a peg-board type set-up, or you can hammer a few nails or screw a few hooks into a compact piece of wood, and affix it firmly to the garage wall.
Short-handled tools like trowels, edge clippers, hand rakes and garden scissors can be bundled together, and stored in a collapsible canvas garden bag in a corner of the garage, garden shed or anywhere outside, under cover.
Before you stow the tools away, give the working edges a wipe over with a damp, soapy cloth. Once dry, apply a light coating of oil to the metal bits, and lubricate the moving parts with Q20 or 3-in-1 oil. That way, you’ll prevent the formation of rust, and extend the life of your garden hand tools.
Chainsaw storage best practice
Chainsaws, hedge trimmers and other mechanical tools are potentially dangerous, and should be stored in a locked room. As with most equipment, the optimal storage conditions are a cool, dry and well-ventilated area, well away from heat sources and direct sunlight.
Heavy, power-driven tools can be hung on sturdy storage hooks suspended from the ceiling or roof rafters, or they can be stashed on shelving attached comparatively high up on the garage wall.
If you are storing a chainsaw for any length of time, it’s best practice to empty the fuel tank, remove the chain, and spray the saw and guide bar with protective oil.
Lawn mower storage tips
Lawn mowers typically take up a fair bit of space. The best way to get around this problem is to collapse the handles, and slide the reduced profile under a work bench.
Some lawn mowers can be stored in a vertical position but, if all else fails, you can always cover the mower with a waterproof tarpaulin, and park it in a secure spot outside.
If you are storing a petrol-driven lawn mower for an extended period, it’s a good idea to drain the fuel tank, disconnect the spark plug, and clean away any debris or grass cuttings.
Storing hosepipes and accessories
Hosepipes can easily degrade in the strong South African sun. Ideally, they should be stored flat on the ground, coiled into a figure of eight, in a cool, dry place.
That, however, is not always a practical solution, especially when your interior space is limited. A better solution is to loosely coil the pipe, and hang it from a large, curved hook suspended on wire or nylon rope from the ceiling.
A convenient solution for storing gardening equipment
At XtraSpace, we offer clean, secure self-storage units that are ideal for storing gardening equipment and tools – along with just about anything else – until you’re ready to use them again.
Some advantages of storing gardening equipment with XtraSpace:
- no deposit
- no need to sign a long lease
- affordable rates
- self-storage units in a very wide range of sizes
- 24/7 security with access control and CCTV monitoring.
We have branches across Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Contact us for more information or browse to find a branch near you.