Garden Gloves
While gardening, you should always wear garden gloves to save your hands from getting blistered, scratched or dirty. Additionally, some garden gloves are actually essential for protecting your health while applying pesticides or other chemicals. There are many different types of gloves for every gardening job. Here is a brief guide to help you choose the ones to suit your needs.
Types of garden gloves
• Basic: Basic gardening gloves are made from a thin material and are lightweight. These are usually the cheapest gloves for gardening and come in many different sizes and colors. Use these basic gloves to protect your hand during general gardening tasks like potting or handling seedlings.
• Rose Gloves: Roses have sensitive flowers but their stems are thick and have thorns. To deal with both of these parts, you need a garden glove which can protect your hands but is still lightweight. That is why suede garden gloves are usually advertised as rose gloves though you can use them with several other thorny plants as well.
• Landscape Gloves: Landscaping garden gloves will have thicker padding on the palm area to protect the hand during strenuous work. They should also have surface to aid with gripping.
Features of garden gloves
Depending on what task you are doing, you will need to find gloves for gardening that have certain features.
• Enhanced Grip: This feature is becoming standard even on cheap gardening gloves. The grip is usually in the form of rubber dots which prevent slippage while you hold garden tools. This is a crucial feature to help prevent blisters while gardening.
• Waterproof: Gardening gloves which are waterproof are also sometimes called trapper gloves. Pond gloves are shoulder length and are used for gardening in deep water. They usually are made of PVC.
• Chemical Resistant: These gardening gloves are a must for when working with any chemicals such as pesticides, weed treatments, fertilizers, and other potentially dangerous substances. Chemical resistant garden gloves are usually made from vinyl, nitrite, or neoprene. It is good to buy chemical resistant garden gloves which are also washable.
• Puncture Resistant: While working with thorny bushes, thistle or other plants with sharp protrusions, you will need puncture resistant gardening gloves. They are usually made out of a tough leather or suede. If you plan on working with chain saws or other heavy equipment, you may want to look for gardening gloves which are cut proof. Puncture resistant gardening gloves are also important if you have snakes, insects or rodents in your garden.
Getting a Good Fit on garden gloves
To make sure that you are getting the most out of your gardening gloves, they need to fit well. Gardening gloves which are too small will restrict movement and cause hands to cramp up. Gloves which are too large can cause chaffing or get caught on tools.
To make sure that you get a good fit, try on both gloves and make a clenched fist. Then try grabbing onto a tool to be sure that the garden gloves are comfortable.
