What is your favourite tool / implement for landscaping?

[canoetrpr]

At some point I plan on taking on a landscaping project on my front yard. It's about an acre in size.

Not planning on doing anything terribly fancy here. The front of the house has a decrepid 2 ft x 30 ft flower bed. I plan to dig it deeper and make it wider and reshape it. The middle of the yard has 10ft x 8ft section which I guess was intended to be flower bed of some sort but has a pile of ugly bushes in it - some are about 6 feet high. Meybe they looked good when they were small but I'd want to get rid of that area entirely probably - pull out the bushes some how, grade and just grow grass over it.

I could go after the digging with a loader/toothbar. Shape out the new flower bed by hand and then get in there with the loader to dig down. Dig around my 'bush bed' to get to the roots of the bushes and then maybe pull them out with a chain or something.

My concern is that I would ruin the rest of the grass with ruts with all the digging. I can sure dig with my loader/toothbar but have absolutely no finesse doing so. One option is that I just go down this route and then use the box blade across the whole area that I have mucked up to re-level it and re-sod.

Another option is to somehow use this to justify the purchase of a backhoe . Sounds like overkill for digging a foot or so but then I could use it for other things like digging out a couple stumps that are in the front yard. Rebuild a retaining wall some day. For just the landscaping a nice little BX24 sized backhoe looked nice but I would probably just be adding a backhoe to my L3400 - so maybe I could just get a smaller bucket (12-14")?

Any thoughts?

 

[ChuckinNH]

Like this? Slow, and easy, and you shouldn't tear things up too badly. This guy on the JD forum sure did a nice job with his loader!

 

[jmfox]

My concern is that I would ruin the rest of the grass with ruts with all the digging.

If you have the equipment, why worry about the ruts? You should minimize the mess, but a few eggs will need to broken.

jmf

 

[wushaw]

Just rip, tear, level and re-seed.

 

[canoetrpr]

Aw shucks guys!. I was thinking you would come up with "you must get a backhoe to dig a flower bed.... what are you thinking?"

 

[BotaBigot]

Uh huh...saw right thru that trap you laid for us. Don't know about backhoes for flower beds, but I do know that loaders are for carrying trees...for BXes anyway...

 

[AndyMA]

Uh huh...saw right thru that trap you laid for us. Don't know about backhoes for flower beds, but I do know that loaders are for carrying trees...for BXes anyway...

Backhoes are great for flower beds, softening ground for leveling and thousands of other uses. I would estimate that they at least triple the usefulness of a tractor. I've had 5 and would never be without one. I keep one mounted at just about all times on my TN and use the Ford 2120 for 3 pt hitch work. They are definately my favorite implement.

And BTW renting one is usesless unless you only have one task to do. I jump on and off mine virtually evety tiem I use my tractors.

Andy

 

[ChuckinNH]

I sure do miss having the small backhoe that was on my BX22! Could sure have used that today. They are just about as handy as an armhole in a vest.

 

[brandoro]

I'm not a flowerbed kind of guy but if I were I think the BH would be on the list of tools desired for the creation of one. A BH is one of those tools that can be pressed into service for all sorts of things. There are threads dedicated to just that, "what do you use your BH for??"

 

[AndyMA]

"what do you use your BH for??"

Just about everything

Best tool ever for grubbing brush with roots

Andy