By summer's end, my spring gardening checklist tends to look very unchecked: The boxwood beds are still wild with weeds, anything that didn't make it through winter is dead in the ground, and planters are stacked and full of cobwebs behind the shed. Most of this I blame on a very eager toddler who loves to "help me garden," and by that I mean displacing massive amounts of mulch and seeds and pea gravel while I follow behind her tidying it all up. This year, however, I got things done.
But how, considering said helper was still in full mayhem mode and I had another baby in April? All thanks to the Homestead Hero.
That's what Polaris calls their Ranger XP 1000 (an off-road utility vehicle) with a full set of Milwaukee tools strapped on top. When they emailed me to ask if I wanted to test out this insanely enticing combo for a month, I almost didn't bite. My half-acre backyard is generous by some standards, but it's not like I'm Martha Stewart hauling limbs, plowing snow, and toting chow chows around my sprawling country estate. (As you can see, she's a fan.) My husband and I do move a lot of heavy things in our crappy wheelbarrow, however, and Martha does know her stuff...
More From House Beautiful
A month later I was staring down a Ranger in the driveway.
How Does a Utility Vehicle Make Gardening Easier?
Here's a list of everything we hauled (and, okay, imagined hauling) around in the Ranger, and how it genuinely made our yard work light. For many projects, we popped open the tailgate and used it as a sort of moveable potting and workstation.
- Limbs and debris / No more dreading the annual game of Pick-up Sticks.
- Heavy planters and flats of flowers and herbs / In one afternoon, we lugged about 20 of these from behind a shed back to the house, planted them all, and my back doesn't hurt.
- Bags of potting soil, mulch, compost, etc. / The hardest gardening chore, dissolved.
- Bigger shrubs and shovels for planting them / Goodbye, sad dead hydrangea; hello five new arrivals.
- Firewood / Transporting pieces from the splitter or dump truck doesn't have to be such a chore.
- Hoses and watering cans / We DIY a highly ragtag irrigation system of sprinklers and soaker hoses every spring, and this year the grass is green.
- In-laws, siblings, cousins, etc. / 12/10 recommend this purely for fun! Helmets required.
- Trash and recycling cans / No more dragging them down the driveway.
- Building supplies: saws, plywood sheets, two-by-fours, pavers, etc. / That neverending project (shed, patio, playhouse, etc.) in the backyard? Imagine completing it.
- Leaves / If we had the Ranger this fall, I'd tie a big tarp to the back of it to move the leaves out once they're blown into a pile.
- Snow / Martha makes this look easy!
Hauling plants, potting soil, and planters was my favorite of these tasks. The act of resetting our herb garden normally takes a full weekend over time, but we pulled it off in one merry afternoon. See above—and never mind me holding a baby and trying to take a nice photo of the stoop.
Which Tools Help the Most With Gardening Projects?
We didn't drive the Ranger every day, but when we did, we got so much done. On the other hand, we found ourselves reaching for the included Milwaukee tools constantly. Perhaps our most-grabbed item was the M18 FUEL Dual Battery Blower, which we got out anytime our toddler ate/played/made a mess on the deck, and also to clean up after potting sessions. (Honestly life-changing for cleanup purposes.)
I'm not exactly handy with a chainsaw, but the M18 FUEL Chainsaw is light enough for me to feel confident using; we trimmed all sorts of overgrowth using it and the M18 FUEL String Trimmer w/ Quik Lok. You just add a bit of chain oil to get them ready to go.
Is a Polaris Ranger Worth the Price?
Having the Homestead Hero around didn't just make our landscaping and home-improvement projects easier—it actually motivated and enabled us to get them done. So while the sticker price on a Ranger XP 1000 (from $20,299 new) might seem out of reach at first, consider that it can cost the same amount or even more to hire landscapers, leaf blowers, snow blowers, and firewood delivery for a calendar year. The larger the property you have to maintain, of course, the more you might be able to justify such an investment.
Beyond that, you'll also need a place to park it, free time to use it, and the desire to DIY your own landscaping and home improvement projects. Check, check, check? Your Martha Stewart moment awaits: Enter to win your own Homestead Hero, a fully accessorized Ranger XP1000, here.
Amanda Sims Clifford is the executive editor at House Beautiful. She oversees content creation for the brand on all platforms. She formerly held editorial positions at Architectural Digest, launching the brand's Millennial-focused blog Clever, and at Food52, where she served as the founding editor of the design department. She is based in New York.
