The spade is an implement which has changed somewhat dramatically since the Neolithic Revolution roughly 12,000 years ago, when some bright individual first used an animal’s shoulder blade for shifting soil and inadvertently planted the seeds from which modern agriculture would eventually bloom. These days, however, there is no need to source an animal scapula for your digging needs as the many and various tools we sell here at Lawnmowers Direct offer a far more efficient solution; no garden shed is complete without one.
Many a gardener’s favourite tool and one that he or she relies on year round to perform a multitude of tasks, spades and shovels come in a variety of shapes and sizes depending on the task for which they are required. The terms “spade” and “shovel” do have distinct meanings (with “spade” reserved for implements designed for cutting and digging and “shovel” for tools used for scooping and moving loose materials) but in practice the two are often used interchangeably. The important thing to remember is that a broader blade with a deeper curve in the head will be more efficient when moving large quantities of loose soil and other materials, whereas when faced with densely packed, unbroken soil you will probably want the extra digging power offered by a flatter, narrower blade (some are even pointed for maximum ground penetration).
Aside from digging and shifting soil, spades and shovels can be used for a variety of jobs including breaking up clumps of earth, clearing up small piles of debris, tidying lawn borders and transplanting shrubs and saplings. Other shovels are a little more specialised, ranging from the dinky little hand trowel to dedicated trenching and transplanting shovels which are shaped to make tricky horticultural jobs as quick and hassle-free as possible. As such there is almost certainly a spade or shovel in our range suitable for you, whether you are looking for something for some particular job or just a reliable workhorse of a spade which you will be able to depend on for years to come.
Moreover, although the basic design of the spade has remained largely unchanged for many decades, ergonomic innovations are now more common and modern materials composite materials such as fibreglass and carbon steel mean that tools can be made to be stronger and lighter than ever before. This means that the various shovels and spades we sell here are designed to perform reliably even in the toughest situations while also easing the stresses inflicted on joints while you work, with the clever “O”-shaped handles found on Radius Garden’s equipment a fantastic example of how this age-old tool is still evolving even today.