GardenHog and Garden Shark, courtesy of Amazon.com

When it comes to advice on the best garden tools, it pays to ask a gardener. Or, in this case, a garden blogger.

Two new rakes, the Garden Shark and it's half brother, the GardenHog, are getting good reviews from Genevieve Schmidt, author of the blog, North Coast Gardening, with a hearty second from Amy Stewart at Garden Rant.

The tines on the Garden Shark are curved, the better to hold onto material. It is recommended for dethatching your lawn and for smoothing mulch on garden beds.

The GardenHog has even longer tines and is recommended for raking wet leaves and small bits of brush.

Genevieve did some heavy duty testing of the second one spreading mulch and compost and liked it enough to say that it is going to replace her old iron bow rake because it is less tiring to use.

Here's part of what she had to say: "The rake head is also angled ergonomically and the handle’s lighter-weight, so I had to bend less and use less muscle when smoothing the mulch piles over the ground."

The rakes are made by Radius and go for about $28 on Amazon.

Thanks, ladies!