Lawn and Garden Reviews

This matched our All Weather Wicker patio furniture almost perfect and is a great upscale look for the deck. It is a great alternative to the common resin deck box that you see on everyone's back patio!

We use this out on the deck to store hot tub items as well as patio furniture covers and it works great. Living in the Seattle area we tend to get a bit of rain and it keeps everything dry as can be. Great product!

I purchased two of these and they arrived and were really easy to put together. They have a nice base and are sturdy, should last many many years outside. Spiders have not been able to get in and the doors do not sag, I think it's a great buy!

This product is wonderful! I love the weight of the tools (heavy enough for serious gardening). Tote is strong and large enough to carry many items. This will save me trips back and forth to the greenhouse or storage shed. I'm looking forward to the spring thaw so I can really get out and use it.

I have a house with hedges, trees and bushes that are well over 30 years old. Pruning is a huge job and tiresome job that used to require me me to put my hands up over my head and saw. This all changed when I bought purchase the Tree Pruner for my Ryobi ! Getting a into and behind some of the hedges or up onto the branches is now a snap. The only drawback being is ... well, I wear out my blades from all the fun !

We have chickens that wander around the outside of our house. We love the fresh eggs but hate the mess they leave on the walks. So I bought one of these to see if they would deter the chickens and it worked great. So I bought another three of them and placed them on either side of the side walk. The chickens or any other animal don't dare to cross the scare crow. I love this product.

The MOST important and distinguishing feature of Scotts Hand-Held Spreader is its ergonomic design, which unfortunately cannot be clearly seen in the poor picture provided. The spreader has a "sleeve" which rests against the bottom of your forearm. If you think that this is not an important feature, you are simply mistaken. Once you have loaded the spreader with fertilizer, you may easily hold and try to balance 8 to 10 lbs. with one hand/arm. (Sounds like a little, but it actually is a lot.) This spreader spreads its weight across your forearm away from just the hand, thus allowing you to apply the fertilizer more evenly and comfortably. With its ergonomic design and, thus, the nullification of the weakness of the wrist, this spreader is in essence an ARM-HELD spreader, not a hand-held spreader, making it the best spreader of its kind on the market -- period.

Numerous brands of deer repellent sprays crowd the shelves at nurseries and garden stores. Here in our small Montana town bordered by wildlands we have a significant urban deer population and the most effective (by far) repellent that I've used is Plantskydd. OK, granted, it doesn't smell as sweet as those prissy mint sprays and you need to be aware of which way the wind blows when you apply it as a little of the organically-based, potent smell goes a long way on skin and clothes as well as plants. In short, it smells really bad (to my human nose) for about a day after an application, but it works really well at repelling deer for weeks. My nurseryman says the smell makes him wretch. I think he is a whimp, but his response is a good indicator of how effective it will be on other mammals. The effective ingredient is pigs' blood in a vegetable oil binder that keeps the product from being quickly washed away by regular watering. The pigs' blood works by emitting an odor that animals associate with predator activity and stimulates a fear-based response which will have deer (elk, moose, opossum, and rabbits, too) looking for somewhere else to dine. I typically spray the product on the mulch or soil at the base of my plants to keep it from discoloring leaves. The product was originally developed in Sweden for use in tree plantations that were being decimated by mammals.

I bought this because I didn't want to put poisons or traps all over the yard, and I certainly didn't want to unleash a bobcat or badger into my yard (as some other website suggested.) I also wanted something that would work in all types of weather and even while I was away. Since you have to reapply the poisons after each rain I figured this was the hassle-free way to go.

I looked all over the internet trying to find out more information about this product, but only found very basic stuff.

Here's what you can expect:

- Shipped with a replacable 1.2 volt AA Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cd) battery that is inside the green housing (just under the solar panel)

- You need to let it charge (sit in the sun) for two days BEFORE hooking it up.

- The gold-colored aluminum "stake" is hollow and can be easily inserted into the ground by pulling the green solar top off and stepping on the top of the tube.

- You need to be able to insert the stake 20cm (8 inches) into the ground.

- Though the product is 'silent' to pets, you can hear a very faint buzzing sound (the "sonar waves") when it goes off - which is every 30 seconds. (At least you know it's working!)

- It's recommended that you plant two units "within 30 meters of each other."

- Each unit is "sufficient to cover up to 650 square meters", which is about 7,000 sq feet. Some quick math (Pi x radius-squared = area of a circle) tells me that the unit's signal will cover up to 15 meters (about 48 feet) FROM the stake in all directions. Guess that explains the '30 meters apart' recommendation.

- The life expectancy of the battery is one year.

- Comes with a 24-month non-transferable warranty.

- It could take up to about 2 weeks for the moles to relocate.

- Manufactured by Smart Solar.

- Instructions are in English, German, French, and Dutch.

I highly recommend this item for getting the moles out of your yard!

***UPDATE: After three solid days of rain and overcast skies I noticed the Solar Molers weren't making their little chirps. I came to the conclusion that three days without sun is too much for the battery. I recommend that if you are expecting long days of little or no sun that you pull the top off, unplug the unit and put the top back on DURING THE DAY and plug it back in at night (when they are most active.) This should allow the batteries to get a decent charge for the night.

I had a terrible mouse infestation 2 years ago. I tried the so-called "humane" traps, but they could not keep up with the exploding rodent population, were not "humane" at all if you could not check them several times a day, and it was enormously inconvenient to relocate the inmates to a far distant location at any time of day or night. Then I bought a set of 3 PC3300 Pestchasers. The mice moved out over the next few weeks. I have had a recurrence this Fall with mice nesting in the washer/dryer units in the utility room (but staying largely out of the kitchen/dining area where the PC 3300 Pestchasers are mounted). The wall outlet in the utility room is too high up to beam any sound under the washer/dryer units with a wall unit. I've just ordered the PC2020 model with the cord, so I'll be evaluating that unit to see if it might work for getting under appliances.