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Whether your customer is a homeowner planting a flower bed or a contractor renovating a large lawn, there is a tiller to suit his or her needs.

Types of tillers

To start with, there are three main categories of tillers: cultivators, front- or mid-tine, and rear-tine.

Cultivators are lightweight and easy to manipulate for light-duty work. They're usually powered by a two-cycle engine to cultivate or till raised bed gardens or small flower beds, explains Anne Fisackerly, marketing executive with Maxim Manufacturing. The cultivator is not suitable for breaking new ground or for large-scale gardening. While they are definitely the little brother in the tiller family, cultivators are easy to use and versatile.

Sometimes confused with cultivators, but a different animal altogether, is the mini-tiller. According to Linda Beattie, commercial public relations and marketing & sales support at Schiller Grounds Care, the distinction is in the working depth. "A tiller is a tool that can exceed a digging depth of six or more inches," she says. "A cultivator is a digging tool that achieves a depth of up to six inches. Unit and tine design also play a role in the classification."

Beattie explains that Mantis introduced the first hand-held tiller nearly 30 years ago and met with a certain degree of skepticism in the market. "It was a lightweight, hand-held tiller/cultivator that could till up to 10 inches deep with tines that were reversible to also shallow cultivate and weed," she says. "It's the same design utilized today."