4 Genius Ways Pool Noodles Can Make Your Lawncare Tasks Easier

When you look at your lawn — a smooth expanse (and expense!) of green grass you've worked hard to make identical to all the others around you — you probably don't immediately think of jazzing it up with some $1.25 pool noodles. Lawn care is costly, and it's the kind of investment that rarely allows for shortcuts. So, when you stumble across a way to cheaply and easily improve your lawn care experience, you should take it. Such is the specialty of the pool noodle. It makes less work of work, more fun of fun, and turns the monochromatic and mundane positively colorful. Pool noodles exist to provide flotation, yes, but also padding. Not to mention they're fun.

How much fun? You might remember the popular YouTube video in which a Midlothian, Texas man donned a hat with pool noodles sticking out from both sides, armed himself with another noodle, and took to his riding lawn mower to joust with emus who were determined to halt his best lawn-trimming efforts. That was probably the most fun anyone's ever had doing lawn care with pool noodles, but it's not exactly a likely scenario. No, what you need are pool noodle hacks that you can use today (or probably Saturday) to make the most of your lawn ... whether the emus like it or not.

The goal of this hack is to make your long-handled yard and garden tools more ergonomic by slipping a pool noodle over those handles to provide a thicker grip. TikTok creator and WD-40 fan @jmg8tor applied this hack to a rake, but any sufficiently thin-handled tool or roomy pool noodle should do the trick. The TikToker used WD-40 to lubricate inside of the noodle, but whether or not lubrication is necessary will depend on both your handle and noodle. Some shovel handles are thicker than a typical rake's handle, for example, or will have sections that are.

There are a few caveats. This trick obviously won't work on D-handled implements unless you first remove the D-handle. Also, some fiberglass-handled tools have a cap at the end that might not be removable and, therefore, might prevent you from slipping the pool noodle on from that end.

An important note on ergonomics: You may instinctually think that thicker, padded handles are more ergonomic by default, but there is an important exception. When the power of your grip is important — as when using a shovel to lift, move, or remove something heavy — a handle diameter between 1³/₁₆ inches and 1⁹⁄₁₆ inches is ideal. Typical rake and shovel handles both fall within that range, so while adding a noodle to a rake might help, adding one to a shovel that requires more power might actually reduce your grip strength.

There's no reason your rake's handle should have all the fun. YouTube creator Hometalk shows us that you can also use a pool noodle to blunt the business end of a bow rake. Just cut a slit in the noodle lengthwise (if there isn't one already) and insert it over the rake. Hometalk takes the additional step of cable-tying the noodle to the rake. With the cable ties in place, your rake is now a squeegee, and it's very effective at, for example, pushing standing water off a concrete surface. But if cutting and replacing cable ties every time you use a rake sounds frustrating, you could just use hook and loop straps, which are pretty affordable on Amazon.

If you hang such long-handled tools head up on the wall using something like these DIY hanging tool storage brackets, they might prevent a rake from poking you (or falling on top of you) as you walk by. Also, later in the same video, Hometalk uses a noodle to protect their electric hedge trimmer blades when not in use. Trimmers are pretty sharp, so this is useful for storage and preventing rust.

Of course, if you don't already have tool storage hangers in place for your lawn care tools, pool noodles have your back yet again. This is a variation of an old trick we've seen in other contexts, like when hanging brooms, mops, and fishing rods. The idea is to mount a pool noodle horizontally to a wall in your garage or tool shed, then cut  vertical slits in the noodle to hold the handles of your long-handled rakes, step aerators, manual sod pluggers, and the like. This hack should also work with short-handled tools as well, but since those can't rest on the floor, you'll need to support their entire weight with the pool noodle. So, this might not be the best approach for the heaviest short-handled hand tools.

We tried using a pool noodle as a broom and mop hanger and found that the adhesives most use to attach the noodle to the wall can't handle much weight. One solution is to use fasteners like screws (along with washers to distribute the load so the screws won't tear out of the noodle), as shown in this pool noodle fishing rod storage hack.

You're probably thinking that pool noodles have nothing to do with mowing a lawn. This ungenerous view of the mower-noodle relationship is understandable but unfortunate. A pool noodle on your push mower's handle can help you mow your lawn with ease since it's easier on the hands. For people with conditions like arthritis and hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS), the vibration of a lawn mower can be a very real medical problem. HAVS can result in loss of dexterity or loss of function altogether.

This mower hack is almost as simple as placing a pool noodle over your push mower's handle, but there are some potential pitfalls to watch out for. The noodle should rotate freely so that you can adjust your grip easily. You should also take care that the pool noodle doesn't interfere with the safety bar that shuts off the mower when you release your grip.