What gardening equipment do I need for a small garden or balcony?

Six tools: a small bypass pruner (Felco F-6 over the F-2), a stainless trowel, a hori-hori, a 5-pint brass watering can, leather gloves, and a folding hand rake. No power tools, no wheelbarrow, no full-size spade.

Can I garden on a balcony without buying any large gardening equipment?

Yes — and you should. Balcony gardening rewards small, sharp, well-chosen tools and punishes anything bulky. The six-tool kit above fits in a single canvas bag and covers ninety-five percent of balcony tasks.

Do I need a hose for a small garden?

Usually no. A 5-litre brass watering can with two refills covers most small gardens; for balconies, a single can holds enough for fifteen to twenty containers. If you must, a 10-foot expandable hose is the most space-efficient choice.

Is the Felco F-2 too big for a small garden?

Not too big, but the Felco F-6 (a 5 mm shorter version) is the better-fitting choice for small hands and tight-cluster pruning typical of container plants. Same lifetime, same quality, comparable price to the F-2.

/ Compact Gardens · 05 of 08

Gardening equipment for small gardens & balconies.

Small gardens punish the wrong gardening equipment more than large ones. Oversized loppers, three-handled spades, and gas-powered anything do you no favours on a 20-square-metre balcony. Here is the compact-garden kit, tested.

7 min read Updated May 9, 2026 By the Editors

The small-garden constraint

The temptation, when you have a small garden, is to buy small versions of everything: a mini wheelbarrow, a children’s spade, a 1-litre watering can. This is wrong. The right approach is to buy fewer pieces of gardening equipment, each one full-quality and sized to your hands rather than your plot.

You will still be cutting the same rose stems, scooping the same compost, holding the same trowel for fifteen minutes at a stretch. The forces on your wrist and back do not scale with garden size; the tools should not be cheap because the garden is small.

The six-tool compact kit

Tool	Pick	Why this one
Bypass pruner	Felco F-6	5 mm shorter than F-2, sized for small hands and tight-cluster pruning
Trowel	Burgon & Ball RHS	Stainless, lifetime warranty, the right weight in the hand
Hori-hori	Niwaki Hori-Hori Pro	Replaces a soil knife, a weeder, and half a hand pruner
Watering can	Haws Practican 5 pint	Brass rose, fits under most balcony taps
Gloves	West County Work	Leather, palmable in a coat pocket
Folding hand rake	Niwaki Bahco P74	The only rake that earns space in a balcony kit

What you do not need in a small garden, despite what the gardening-equipment industrial complex would like you to think:

A wheelbarrow — a bucket works
A long-handled spade — the hori-hori covers what little digging you do
Loppers — anything beyond pruner-diameter is a sign you are pruning too late
A hedge trimmer — a small garden has hedges you can shear by hand in 20 minutes
A leaf blower — a small brush handles it
A strimmer — most balconies have no grass
A kneeler — most balcony work is standing or on a chair

Small-garden specific picks worth knowing about

A handful of pieces of gardening equipment are specifically better in small gardens than the universal essentials.

The Felco F-6 over the F-2

Same Swiss-made quality, same lifetime, same price as the F-2, but 5 mm shorter in the handle. For most adult hands the F-2 is the right answer; for small hands or for the tight-cluster pruning typical of balcony rose pots, the F-6 fits better. Trust your fingers: try both at a garden centre.

The Haws Practican 5-pint can over the No. 4

The Practican is 5 imperial pints (3 L) instead of 9 (5 L). It tucks under the average balcony tap (which the No. 4 will not always do), weighs less when full, and is enough water for ten container plants. For a small garden, the Practican is the right Haws.

Niwaki Bahco P74 folding hand rake over a leaf rake

A standard leaf rake is six feet long and has nowhere to go in a small garden. The Niwaki-distributed Bahco P74 is a folding-tine hand rake — about 30 cm extended, half that closed — that does the small jobs (clearing balcony floors, raking around container plants) without taking up storage space.

A compost caddy over a compost bin

If you compost in a small garden, do it in a 4 L kitchen caddy that you empty into the local council scheme. A full-size compost bin is wonderful, but it demands a corner of garden you don’t have. Don’t force it.

What about apartment-only plant-keepers?

If your “garden” is six houseplants and a basil pot on the windowsill, you need almost no formal gardening equipment at all. The three pieces worth owning:

A pair of Niwaki Mainichi Essentials shears — small, sharp, for deadheading, herb harvest, and rootbound trimming.
A 1-litre house-plant watering can — long thin spout that reaches between pots.
A stainless dibber — for re-potting and pricking out seedlings.

A small kit, well under $100 all-in. That is the entire apartment kit. Spend the difference on plants.

Buy the Felco F-6 on Amazon

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When the small garden becomes a bigger one

If you find yourself outgrowing the compact kit — you’ve moved to a house, the balcony became a back garden — the path is additive, not replacement. Keep every piece above. Add a long-handled spade, a digging fork, a wheelbarrow, a brass No. 4. The compact kit becomes the day-pack of a larger working library.

See the full essential gardening equipment list for the eight-tool home-garden kit, or how to choose gardening equipment that lasts for the buying framework that underlies every pick we make.