Gardening can be a solitary pursuit, and many people like it that way. But bags of manure and birdseed weigh fifty pounds, bulky peat moss bales can be tough to maneuver down narrow paths, and mud slows down everything you try to move. Nobody needs a strained back, either.

Luckily, Growise Centers feature plenty of handy helpers for moving gardeners; garden tool manufacturers have many clever inventions to lighten the load, and at reasonable costs.

Others may already be in your garage. Look for that tarp you used to paint the living room and put it under big shrubs that need moving. Don’t lift them; drag them to their new home. Put a pair of 2' x 4’s (5.08 cm x 10.16 cm) across a child’s wagon to move a few flats of seedlings out to the garden. And use those lightweight plastic sleds to move heavy container plants out to their shady summer home under your trees.

Wheelbarrows come in two basic types: garden and contractor’s. Lightweight, usually with tubular metal arms and shallow troughs wider at the back than the front, gardener’s barrows decrease the trips you make around the yard. Use them to move flats of plants, several gallon cans at once, hand tools, fertilizer bags, stakes, watering cans, and those garden essentials, a cool drink and a portable radio. They make perfect portable potting benches, too.

Bigger and heavier, contractor’s wheelbarrows have deep metal buckets, one big tire, and wooden handles. These move dirt, piles of leaves, stacks of brush, shovels, and trees too heavy to lift into place. If you’re landscaping from scratch, you’ll use these a lot.

Garden carts have wide front bars to make the pulling easy and two wheels for greater stability and balance on heavy loads. With buckets made of fiberglass or wood, carts come in various widths, so be sure to measure your narrowest path before buying. Do-it-yourself cart kits provide all the hardware and you choose and cut a medium weight plywood. Paint or stain these for long life.