Kitchen Garden Forum

Do you wear long or short sleeves for gardening work?

My wife keeps telling me long sleeves would prevent me getting scratches on my arms, but I view that as an occasional hazard of gardening .

The only protection I normally use is a stout pair of leather gardening gloves and those usually for hedging or operating machinery.

Personally I always wear short sleeves, beacuse I do not like long sleeves getting ;
Caught on thorns.
Soaked with water.
Covered in dirt.
Worn out at the elbow.
Flapping around in the way, especially when affected by the above four.

What do other folk think on this subject

I'm with you on the long sleeves Peter; they just get in the way. I do wear a long sleeved fleece sometimes, but's usually just if I'm cold, although I invariably roll the sleeves up a bit. I have a sleeveless fleece which works a lot better.

I have started wearing gloves this two years, something I've rarely done in the past, as I was given a pair of Showa gloves that are like a second skin. I've had to buy more as they are brilliant but do wear out with rough work. They're designed for more delicate people than me I suspect but the state of my maulers is so much improved it's worth the expense.

I don't think long sleeves stop you getting scratched anyway in my experience! I'm also a fan of the sleeveless 'gilet' type coat, load of pockets for filling with secataurs, string, sarnies etc. On gloves, I usually end up with thick thornproof ones for dealing with my hawthorn hedges, but keep forgetting for day to day stuff, I always seem to end up coated in soil anyway!

Long sleeves for me - got too many scratchy plants in my garden. I cannot, however, wear gardening gloves - it's just not proper gardening if you can't feel the muck underneath your fingernails

I always wear long sleeves, but being the silly fellow i am, i always roll them up.

Kind regards, best of both worlds, Old Herbaceous.

Theres definitely no fool like an old fool.

Well, it depends on the weather and what I am doing, so I haven't done the poll because you didn't give me answer that fitted.

If it is cold and I am doing something like weeding round perennials, which doesn't generate much heat then I will wear long sleeves. Hot weather and hot work and I'll be down to a vest.

I tend to wear layers that I can adjust easily. But I do have to wear long sleeeves for some 'hot' jobs, because if I am out all day I may burn and I won't take any chance I will come into contact with cleavers. I can get blisters all the way up my forearms just from picking up one strand of cleavers, especially if they aren't covered as exposure to the sun make the allergy worse.

Hi Peter,
I always have long sleeves, and as OH says you can always roll them up. I also always wear long trousers not shorts and always have steel capped boots.
I have in the past seen too many stupid accidents caused by the use of inappropriate clothing.
I actually saw one person remove two toes by using a hover mower with flip flops on his feet on a bank of grass. I have voted for long everything!!

Short sleeves, or no sleeves at all, regardless of the weather. I have developed into a walking radiator and wear as little as is decent (and that's a matter of opinion). Inevitably I acquire scars, but that doesn't usually trouble me. Mind you - I did literally shred my legs when I fell into a blackberry hedge last autumn, which gave my work colleagues something to laugh about.

I wear long sleeves, gloves, long trousers and wellies unless it's hot. Also a hat most of the time. Partly for warmth and partly for protection. I suppose I'm just cautious, but like another poster, I get rashes from skin contact with certain weeds and grass. Also, I did hear once of someone who died from getting pricked by a rose thorn (got infected and then blood poisoning). A colleague at work got her eyeball scratched when weeding around a pointy leaved pot plant.
It's dangerous out there I tell you!

it depends on the conditions at the time, i view clothes as protection if i need long sleeves and gloves for protection i will wear them, if they arnt needed and its too hot they come off.
couple of years ago we were staying on a campsite , one of the static van occupants was strimming the grass round her van wearing what can best be described as a few flimsy triangles of cloth, no footwear, no eye protection I could hadly bear to watch!

Never wear short sleeves (or shorts). If it's warm enough for them it almost certainly means the midges are out - downside of living on the edge of the moors. Anyway I once had ginger hair so burn easily.

If and when the sun comes out up here I somtimes loosen the knot in my scarf.