Gardening implements are overrated. Go to the hardware store and check out all the super-duper weed wackin' power rakes and weed devils and all that stuff that looks like it came from a medieval torture chamber. All you need for proper lawn and garden care are a round spade, a square spade, a metal rake, a lawn rake, a hand trowel, a good pair of work gloves, a lawnmower, a wheelbarrow, a sickle if you have long grass or brush to clear, and a powered roto-tiller if you want a sizable vegetable garden. And a beer. Teach you teenage children how to use each safely, then sit back and drink the beer.
Ants are alien beings.
I don't know who got out the scale and actually figured this, but think about it the next time you step on an ant that got into your kitchen because you dropped a cheese curl. Ants can get through the tiniest hole or crack. They can even get into a non-existent hole. This can only be proof that they traveled here a long time ago by alien spaceship and decided to take over our planet one ant hole at a time. Mulch is necessary for life.