A friend of ours is a landscape gardener and we hired him to transform our garden last summer as we wanted the lawn raised. This involved moving tonnes of soil so one item we needed was a wheelbarrow as we previously had never owned one due to not really needing one.

As our friend has friends in the trade, he said he would get us one as he could get them discounted. He advised us to get a heavy duty wheelbarrow as he uses his on a daily basis and it is still going strong. Although I don't know exactly how long he had owned his for, I gathered by his recommendation that it had been quite a while. We ended up with a parasene heavy duty wheelbarrow.

Parasene is not a name I had previously heard of, but then I am not exactly knowledgeable when it comes to wheelbarrows so there was probably no reason why I should have heard of this company before. I was assured though that it is a good quality make. To get some of the technical information regarding our wheelbarrow, I have found it on the internet as to me a wheelbarrow is just a wheelbarrow!

This one is available in green and black. We have the green one but as far as I can see, there is no specific reason why this is available in different colours as there is no difference between the two. It has the standard two handles which are attached to the front wheel by a steel tube frame. This frame has extra support struts to increase the strength of the wheelbarrow too.

The wheel has a 360mm pheumatic tyre and the steel frame is rust resistant which I think is a good thing to have as being outdoors all the time, this type of product does tend to rust quickly. You can tell almost immediately that this really is a good quality, heavy duty wheelbarrow. Its steel pan is really robust and feels really strong and sturdy. I am not an overly keen gardener, but when they were in the middle of transforming our garden, I did do a bit of shovelling and moving of dirt to get things moving along quicker and I have to admit that I managed to manoeuvre and steer this one a lot easier than I expected to. I am not overly strong and it did concern me that because this is a heavy duty wheelbarrow, it was going to be quite heavy even when empty, let alone when it was full.

I was quite surprised though to find that this wasn't as heavy as I thought. The wheel worked well and I found this easier than I thought I would do to handle. I liked the fact too that the top of the handles were covered by a rubber like substance so you weren't having to hold the steel frame itself when moving the wheelbarrow, you do have proper handles which is essential if you are moving the wheelbarrow all day when full as this will save your hands from blistering.

Price wise, I don't know exactly what my partner paid for this as like I said, we got it discounted from a friend in the trade. However, generally this seems to retail at around £61.00 on the internet. I don't know what a standard cheap and cheerful wheelbarrow retails at so I can't honestly say whether this is a good price or not, but in my opinion this wheelbarrow has been worth the money as it was used a great deal last summer when we were doing the garden and it is still in immaculate condition really considering the use it had.

Overall, this wheelbarrow has proven to be strong, reliable and of a high standard and even though it may be more expensive than a cheap and cheerful one you can purchase from a garden centre, at least you know with this one it is going to last and won't fall apart when heavy weight is added to it. I have full confidence that our wheelbarrow is going to last a good many years before needing replacing so I completely believe this is worth the money you pay for it. Ours stays outside in the garden a lot of the time as the garage is normally occupied by a vehicle and it hasn't gone rusty over the winter months either. I recommend this wheelbarrow for any keen gardener, or even a builder as I believe it is strong and sturdy enough to withstand heavy loads on a regular basis without faltering.