Gardening tools: essential autumn gardening accessories Don't battle your way into the centre of the border, start at one edge and gradually work forward. Load up the Mammoth barrow with your trusty secateurs, loppers (Felco 22), an ARS saw and the Bosch Keo saw and set off. See the product panel for details of all tools. Use the right tool for the job: tackle thinner stems with secateurs, thicker stems with loppers and small branches with a saw. Start at the edge of the shrub or tree and work in, cutting close to the main stem or the ground where possible to avoid leaving stumps that will rot. Leave half an inch or so close to the main stem for the plant to heal. Thicker stems need a saw. I'm a huge fan of the curved turbocut bladed ARS saw - it cuts cleanly and easily. When you get down to the soil, rake up any leaves and twigs from the surface with the Wizard rake from Bulldog and add the debris to your compost bin. Hedge fun To tidy up light, end-of-season growth you need a hedgetrimmer. If you are cutting into older wood, then look for a powerful model with wider-spaced teeth. Electric hedgetrimmers are fine if you are near a power source, otherwise choose a battery-powered or petrol version. If elbow grease is more your style, my favourite hand hedging shears are the Jakoti, like long-bladed dressmakers" scissors. They work like scissors but can cope with some woodiness too. If I've a bit more to tackle, the Bosch Isio is a handy lithium-ion alternative. There's a new crop of hedgetrimmers on the market. Look out for the easy start, low-vibration Mitox HT60D, the cordless lithium-ion Wolf Garten HTA700 and the Flymo EasiCut cordless 420. Tackle your leaves Apart from dangerous and slippery leaves on paths, and carpets of leaves on the lawn that can starve the grass of light and encourage disease, most leaves will break down naturally. I quite like to see the autumnal hues covering the ground for a while. Shuffling through them feels very earthy. If leaves are on the lawn, set your rotary or ride-on mower to a high cut and whizz over the top - it will collect (and loosely chop) the leaves ready for composting. Alternatively, use a blower/vacuum. There are a few new models this season. Look out for the Stihl BR200 backpack blower; you wear the engine on your back. Then there's the quieter and cleaner four-stroke Honda HHB 25E blower. Toro has two new models that collect and shred leaves, both electric and lightweight. Black & Decker has a new cordless lithium ion-powered blower designed to shift 300 litres of leaves on one charge. Once they are lightly chopped, add leaves to the compost heap with equal amounts of chopped green waste and prunings. If you have loads of leaves, make leaf mould: bag them up in black bin liners, stab the bags at the base for drainage and tie tightly. Left for at least a year, they will rot down into a wonderful leaf mould for use around the garden. Get shredding Compost bins, such as this one from link-a-bord, transform waste into nutrition. Don't dump it, compost it. All garden waste can be metamorphosed into soil conditioner and plant food. Soil can never get enough well-rotted garden compost, and you can even use it to make your own potting mix. Seeding weeds, spiny prunings and diseased plants are best not composted, and avoid anything herbicide-treated, but most green waste is fine. Pile it up in a heap in the corner of the garden, or shred it and use a dedicated compost bin. When it comes to shredders, electric is a good choice as long as you can get the waste near to the power source. You've got two main choices - a noisy impact shredder with a cutting plate that revolves at a very fast rpm and slices the waste into small pieces, or a quieter, reduced-gear shredder that uses a slow roller to crush and cut stems into mini, squashed logs. I prefer the latter for many reasons. Mainly the noise, but also because the crushed pieces have a large surface area for the composting microbes to work on and so they break down faster. My best buy (in 2002), the Scheppach Lonos 3, is no longer widely available in the UK, but if you can find one, it's a great machine. Other machines that use a similar low-impact cutting system are available from AL-KO. For one of the latest introductions in shredders, check out the Echo Bear Cat SC2170 chipper-shredder, ideal for large gardens. Use the chippings as mulch on paths or borders, or compost down for a great soil conditioner. For fast compost, choose an insulated bin. Link-a-Bord now makes one from recycled plastic with insulated sides and an ingenious top extension that uses heat from the composting process to help propagate seeds. I am considering putting it in my greenhouse to stave off the winter cold and get my seeds off to an early start.