The minimum tools required for a garden with a lawn, hedge and flower beds is:-

• mower preferably rotary to cut the grass and shred small prunings from your hedge and flowerbeds. The shredded material to be applied as a mulch 3 inches (75mm) deep on weeded areas of your flower beds/hedge before applying 0.5 inch deep mulch of grass mowings on top; at most every fortnight.
• Small stainless steel fork, small spade with lip so that your shoe sole is not cut through when you apply pressure to it, heavy-duty hand trowel and hand fork to weed and plant the beds, kneeling pads to save your knees and secateurs to prune your shrubs.
• Shears to cut your hedge. Any prunings thicker than your little finger should be cut - using your secateurs - to no longer than your outstretched hand so that they will pack together under the mulch.

Collect your teabags and vegetable peelings and place under the mulch created with the shredded prunings and/or grass mowings to:-

• provide nutrients for your plants and
• to stop the ground from drying out due to the wind blowing on the bare ground or the drying action of the sun.

A manure fork makes picking up weeded weeds or piles of grass mowings or leaves easier.

If autumn leaves fall in your garden, set the mower to its highest setting and mow them every 3 weeks until Xmas. Use the mowings as a top up to your flowerbed/hedge mulch.