Elegant block paving solution

In a past life I was the gardening correspondent on The Birmingham Post for more than quarter of a century and still keep my trowel in, so to speak.

If any of my reader(s) - don't want to be too cocky so the plural is speculative - have block paving on their drives or patios then I have come across a tool which is brilliant for cleaning them up - the Burgon & Ball Miracle Block Paving Brush - which the company sell for £9.95. Shops and garden centres sem to put it out at a tenner or £9.99.

I would try and describe it but it is easier to nick a picture of the tool from Burgon and Ball's website

As you can see it is a wooden head with three lines of stiff, wire bristles which are angled to form a wedge shape. The head is on a long handle, like a broom and you just push and pull the wire wedge between pavers and it quickly removes weeds, moss and any build up of soil and dust.

It is much easier than going down on your hands and knees with one of those hooked knife affairs or, as someone once suggested, a tent peg, to scrape out the debris. The brush cleans out the joints beautifully in remarkably quick time.

At first you think that the brush is getting clogged with rubbish but because of the shape with the bristles widening out the head is pretty much self cleaning with each new batch of soil and debris pushing the old rubbish up the widening V shape where it drops out.

A most impressive tool - and before anyone asks, no, my tool was not a freeby for testing. I actually bought mine from a National Trust shop.

They also do a patio grout brush for the same price and a decking brush for £17.95. I didn't need those so didn't buy them so you are on your own with them.

Burgon & Ball are one of those traditional British companies which seem to manage to cling on in Sheffield - a place where they still manage to make things rather than just unpack boxes from China.

They have been going since 1730 and produce an amazing range of hand tools from sheep shears (they are the world's largest producer), bill hooks for hedge layering and hay knives to topiary shears and all the standard and no-so-standard gardening tools.

If you want a look at their website then click here.