Aside from my latest spurts of artsy-fartsy-ness, I love to garden. I love the outdoors, I love my flowers and my plants. The butterflies, and bumblebees and dragonflies. But what drives me bonkers, though, is completely destroying my manicure digging in the dirt. Hubby always tells me we have gloves, and I’ll occasionally use some nitrile ones, but anyone can tell you those aren’t made for gardening. When Pine Tree Gloves offered me a pair of their bamboo gardening gloves, I was more than eager to try them.
I’ve used “dipped” gloves like this before, and I was (and still am!) a huge fan of them. Ideally, they are lighter and less cumbersome than Hubby’s leather outdoors gloves, offer decent finger and palm protection as well as grip, but fit the hands much better for fine motor control and manipulation. Pine Tree Gloves bamboo gloves seem to tick off all these important metrics. But they fall a little short for me and I’ll explain why this might be my situation and not yours.
See, I don’t mess around gardening. When I’m done I’m usually covered in dirt. Digging up bulbs, planting new shrubs, reclaiming decorative rock…It’s no “Martha Stewart” stuff with me, all dressed to the nines with my hair and makeup did. No, no, no. So I need tools (and let’s face it, gloves are tools) that can keep up with me. Pine Tree Gloves Bamboo Gardening gloves were saying “No mas” by about hour 4. While the back are a light woven bamboo fabric, it’s not a tight weave and dirt gets in. It collects in the fingers that are not porous and since I have short-ish fingers, there’s some space at the front of the glove for all that dirt. And it grinds into your fingertips something fierce. Then, at the very end, I noticed that the plastic coating they’re dipped in started to break down, kind of crack apart. Little pieces were lost to the dirt and one finger ended up “exposed”. So, after one use, they were pretty much toast. At $8.99, that’s a little steep for a single-use product. Now, granted, I probably used them a lot harder than maybe was intended. Digging out old bulbs in rocky, densely packed soil is not my every day gardening activity, and probably not yours either. But I’ve had some others last at least a few uses before being tossed, so I’m not entirely sold on these for my needs.
In the end, if you do light gardening or just need some gloves on while you use a tool or two, these might just fit the bill. But if you have heavy, hard work that needs doing, you’re probably better off with some split leather and canvas gloves for a couple of bucks a pair.
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I received the above product(s) free of charge from Pine Tree Gloves. I am not obligated to provide a positive or favorable review, just my honest opinion. My review is based on my experience with the product and/or brand, which may differ from yours.
WOM-derful 