Intriguing gardening products

I received a copy of Lee Valley’s gardening catalog the other day (enclosed in a shipment … yay!). I’m not sure why, but I’ve never seen this catalog before (I’ve just been to their Web site), and it is full of all sorts of interesting gardening supplies and gadgets. Some of them are tried and true, but others are things that I’ve not seen before. I’d love to hear if anyone knows how these items perform.

Copper Blocker

This is a 5-inch-wide copper mesh is used to keep slugs at bay. Because slugs hate copper and won’t touch it, you can surround those plants the slugs love to dine on with this shiny stuff. I like it because there’s obviously no concern about chemicals and no need to remember to apply a product, but I think you might need a lot of it. And what if there’s a slug already in there when you surround your plant?

Plant Clips

I’m positive I know how these came to be. Someone started using their hair clips to attach their vining plants to a trellis and realized they’d be a lot better looking if they were green and hey … gardeners buy anything right?

I’m more of a twine or Velcro tape king of girl but I admit these look kind of fun. Wonder if it’s worth it though.

Rotary Sieve

To me this screams of over-engineering but I understand that some people just want a gadget. This thing will either help mix your custom soil mix (you know… like most people do in a wheelbarrow with a shovel?) or sift your compost (like some people do with a homemade sifter made of hardware cloth, but which I just plain don’t do because I’m lazy). But I bet there’s someone out there who swears by it.

So what do you think? Do you need any of these? Have you tried any of them? And what garden gadgets were you skeptical of but have won you over?

Lee Valley photos