Kent & Stowe Stainless Steel Long Handled Bulb Planter 100% FSC

Product Information

The type of soil that you will be digging into should certainly affect your buying decision. Most low budget long-handled bulb planters work just fine if you have nice, soft soil, but will struggle, or even break under the stresses of trying to work in clay soil. This bulb planter is roughly 7 cm in diameter – it has a conical shape, so is slightly narrower at the base and then wider at the top. There are depth markings etched onto the side, ranging from 0 – 10 cm , and these are clearly visible. The exception would be if you’ve been struggling to dig through hard ground – this tool makes that effortless. In terms of measurements, the dibber is 29 cm long in total , and the spike/head is 12 cm . While dibbers are available in many different sizes, this one seems ideal for bulb planting. There are a couple of ways to get around this, with the first being to tone the power down. You could also try putting your drill into reverse . I did this by accident at first but found that it created a beautifully neat hole, so this is how I ended up using the tool when planting 250 crocus bulbs in the hard, stony soil underneath my lawn.

I couldn’t see any bulbs in the holes (I’m hoping they were further down) but I re-covered the holes anyway and have my fingers crossed for spring! Since these were pretty extenuating circumstances, I haven’t detracted any points from my scoring of the product, but it’s worth a mention for those of you who live in storm-prone areas. Out of the three, this bulb planter was most effective when I was planting into raised beds and grass/lawn. It can be used on harder ground to an extent, but I found that I had to use quite a bit of force to dig down to the desired depth – I felt that doing this too often might cause the handle to break. At the present time, the three long-handled bulb planters above are probably your best options unless you really want to dig deep and spend a lot on a top—tier gardening tool from a specialist supplier. For most people though, either the countryman or Kent & Stowe models should do the job just fine, as long as you use the right tool for the right type of soil. If you have dense soil, like clay, you’d better go for the countryman long-handled bulb planter, but for softer soil types, the Kent & Stowe will do a great job. Long-handled bulb planter- buyer’s guideI used this bulb planter to plant a variety of spring bulbs, including anemones, tulips, daffodils, and crocuses. Its 6 cm diameter made it suitable for all of these bulbs, even though there was a significant size difference between the tulips and the crocuses. I also appreciate how versatile this auger drill bit could be. It claims to also be helpful when it comes to planting bedding plants, mixing soil/cement, and digging holes for other purposes, and I can clearly see how this would be the case. As I mentioned, there are so many bulb planting tools out there that look just like this one (although the handle on WOLF-Garten’s is probably the brightest of the lot!), so while this classic design may not be anything revolutionary, it also doesn’t really have any flaws. The ProPlugger couldn’t get much easier to use. All you need to do is place the tool over the area of soil you want to dig (after sliding on the appropriate depth ring), step down onto it, give it a twist, and pull it up. I used the Draper 3082 Bulb Planter to plant a selection of spring bulbs, including Russian snowdrops, tulips, crocuses, and wild garlic. Its 6 cm diameter was perfect for all of them. I did also give this tool a go when planting onion sets, but the hole that it created was too large.

If you’re planting a lot of larger bulbs, use a bulb planter hand tool that removes plugs of earth . This tool creates uniform holes, and fills them in again, in two simple steps. Look for a width of around 60 mm, and depth marking on the side – something that can be really useful when planting different types of bulb. It measures 96cm long, and so is slightly shorter than the Kent & Stowe model, but it’s not really enough to be noticeable. At least not by myself anyway. The thing is though, you will need to apply quite a bit of force to make this long-handled bulb planter cut through the soil, as for some unknown reason, the makers of this product decided not to make the end serrated, or even that sharp. I fixed this by grabbing my trust angle grinder and sharpening the bottom edge and after that, this tool worked marvellously. The ProPlugger 5-in-1 Planting Tool is extremely effective at planting bulbs. It’s not a tool that I would use for small bulbs that need to be planted just beneath the surface of the soil, but it’s ideal for larger bulbs that need to sit a little deeper, such as tulips. Once you’ve planted your bulb, hold the tool over the hole and squeeze the handle. This causes the tool to open up and drop the plug of soil that it was holding.The long reach handle is made from beautiful ash wood that is shaped for comfort. There is a treaded edge foot grip allowing the planter to be easily pushed into the ground. In addition to planting bulbs and small plants, you can also use this tool for removing weeds with deep taproots, extracting soil samples, drip-edge fertilising trees and as a lawn/sod plugger.

The ProPlugger 5-in-1 Planting Tool boasts a truly unique design – I’ve never actually seen a planting tool before that looks quite like this one. No matter the type of soil you use it in, it produces a neat, conical-shaped hole that’s perfect for small bulbs. I found it to be most beneficial when planting garlic, onions, and small flower bulbs such as crocuses. The hole that it created wasn’t quite deep or wide enough for the tulip bulbs that I was planting – I ended up using a different bulb planter for these. It’s heavy, but this also means that you don’t need to use any force when digging holes. Rather than having to manually push this tool into the ground, the step, twist, and pull motion is all that is required. Bulb planting tools are a great way to not only lessen the manual labour involved, but to also speed the process up. And if you’re not one for spending time on your knees or stooped over, a long-handled bulb planter is probably the type that you want to spend your pennies on. For more details please see: How to use a bulb planter

How to Guide

Blade features a 10cm / 4in scale to assist with planting depth and has a 6cm / 2.3in diameter suitable for even large bulbs.

You then have two options. Place your bulb into the hole and then turn the bulb planter upside down to release the soil over the top of the bulb. Alternatively, move on to dig your second hole. As you do so, the new soil that enters into the cone will push the old soil out of the top. Leave it on the ground and carry on digging all of your holes. Once dug, you can move along them with your bag of bulbs, dropping one into each hole, before filling them in with the soil plug that’s sitting beside each hole. The WOLF-Garten FHN Bulb Planter Hand Tool performed exactly as I expected it to. It’s not a planter that I would recommend to anyone that has overly hard or stony soil, but, for everyone else, this clever little tool will make the bulb planting process so much faster.If, like me, you’ve wasted countless hours struggling to plant bulbs into hard ground, then this auger drill bit will be a huge game-changer – I’m surprised it took me this long to try one out! Surprisingly, I couldn’t find a single thing that I disliked about this dibber. It may be basic compared to some of the other bulb planting tools I tested, but, sometimes, that’s all you really need. Overall, I’d say it’s the best dibber tool available.