Radius Root Slayer 2.0: The Notch That Changed the Dig

Sixteen trees and an idea worth pursuing

In a June 2017 account of the Root Slayer’s development, Radius founder Bruce Baker described a project involving sixteen Douglas-firs. He visited grower Vincent Vultaggio near Mesick, Michigan, dug the trees, and transplanted them to his own property. The experience prompted him to develop a shovel specifically shaped for working through roots.

Another observation helped give the design its form. Baker had noticed landscape workers using notched spades. Seeing someone deliberately sharpen a notch with a file made its purpose clear: it helped direct the blade’s force onto a root. That observation informed the Root Slayer’s inverted-V tip. Baker also described side teeth oriented to cut on the downward stroke.

There is much to admire in that origin. It includes personal engagement with a physical task, attention to experienced workers, and the patient translation of an observation into a manufactured object. The useful idea emerged from understanding what happens at the working edge.

The sixteen trees give the story human scale. This was a project with a destination, a day’s work, and a particular person who wanted living things established in a new place. The product that followed carries some of that specificity. It addresses the moment when a gardener needs a cutting edge to engage the root beneath it.

The two edges have a direction

The sides of the blade extend the idea of purposeful contact. Their repeated cutting forms make the Root Slayer recognizable at a glance. Each part of the outline contributes to the tool’s identity, but the interest goes deeper than appearance.

Direction is essential in hand-tool design. A person has a stance, a grip, and a sequence of movements. The cutting surface has to make sense within that sequence. Here, the downward action is central to how the designer explained the blade.

Consider the difference between looking at a tool lying on a bench and imagining it in motion. On the bench, you see an outline. In motion, that outline passes through material at a particular angle. The work occurs along a path, and the shape has to be read along that path.

This is a useful way to appreciate the Root Slayer: follow the intended movement from the hands through the shaft to the blade. The features at the lower end belong to that movement. They help the tool perform a defined action in the soil.

For someone communicating an engineered product, the lesson is specific. Show the direction of work. Explain where the force enters, which edge meets the material, and what the user is trying to accomplish. A serrated silhouette is memorable; a clear explanation of its action gives the reader something lasting to understand.

The hand deserves equal attention

At the other end is the circular grip that makes Radius tools so distinctive. The current Root Slayer 2.0 O-Handle carries that recognizable design into the newer generation. Radius presents it for digging, cutting, trenching, and edging, with ergonomics central to its description.

The resulting object has two important interfaces: one with the soil and one with the person. Both deserve consideration. The user needs a place to hold and guide the tool while its blade performs the work below.

Baker’s earlier ergonomic-handle patent, US7836557B2, provides useful background. It discusses curved and circular grip forms intended to accommodate hand position as a tool moves through its working arc. Its drawings include garden implements with circular handles. The patent documents the design thinking behind that family of forms; it is not a clinical study of this shovel.

What I find compelling about a curved grip is the invitation to choose where the hand meets it. A continuous arc presents several orientations within one recognizable shape. The person can understand the available hand positions by looking at the object.

That gives the Root Slayer a satisfying relationship between its two ends. The blade offers a deliberate place for engagement with the root. The handle offers a considered place for engagement with the gardener. The shaft connects those two encounters.

The part your boot meets

Between the grip and the cutting edge, there is another contact point worth noticing: the upper edge of the blade where a boot can apply downward pressure. That shoulder gives the gardener a defined surface for the pressing stage of the action. It is part of the tool’s physical character.

Garden tools are used by whole people. Hands steer, feet establish a stance, and body position changes as the work proceeds. A shovel’s design participates in several of those actions at once. Looking only at the sharp edge leaves out much of the experience.

Imagine the sequence of placing the blade, establishing a stable footing, and applying a controlled downward movement. The contact points need to be understandable in relation to one another. A visible step gives the eye a place to locate the foot’s role in that sequence.

The shape also contributes to the product’s visual balance. The broad upper blade, narrower working body, and notched tip create a progression from support toward engagement. It is possible to read that progression as a simple account of how the tool is meant to work.

For designers, these secondary contact surfaces deserve the same curiosity as the headline feature. The most distinctive part may draw attention first, but the complete task depends on how the person holds, places, presses, lifts, and carries the object. Good tool design takes that sequence seriously.

A living garden gives the tool its purpose

The Root Slayer’s most interesting context is a garden that is already growing. Established beds invite ongoing decisions: where to place a new perennial, how to divide a mature clump, which shrub belongs in another position. The design responds to the physical reality beneath those decisions.

That reality gives the story a different character from a general account of moving loose earth. Here, the material is connected to a living landscape. The gardener is working toward a considered change in that landscape.

The tool’s capacity and the gardener’s judgment belong together. For work near established trees, valuable plants, irrigation, or buried services, identify what lies in the intended digging area and choose the appropriate horticultural guidance before cutting. A clear plan gives a specialized tool a worthwhile job.

I like thinking of the Root Slayer in that setting because it connects engineering with care. A garden is shaped through many decisions over time. A well-designed tool can support a particular action within that larger practice, helping the person approach the chosen task with a clear sense of purpose.

The product’s appeal is therefore tied to participation. It belongs to someone who wants to work with the place in front of them, make thoughtful changes, and understand the tools that help those changes happen.

A family grows from a recognizable idea

The Root Slayer collection extends the central design language into tools for different kinds of garden work. The 2.0 O-Handle shovel carries forward the central idea discussed here. Its identity is easy to recognize through the relationship between the grip, the broad step, and the cutting blade.

A coherent product family develops when an underlying insight can be applied to more than one task. The insight must remain visible as the dimensions and working ends change. In this case, attention to purposeful engagement with soil and roots gives the family a shared point of reference.

That is useful for a customer learning a brand. A familiar form can signal a continuity of design thinking. The person begins to recognize what the company pays attention to, even before reading every specification.

For the company, it creates an opportunity to explain each tool through its own job. The family connection opens the door; the specific task gives the individual product its reason to exist. That balance makes a product line interesting to explore.

Why I admire the Root Slayer

The Root Slayer rewards a second look. First you notice the vivid handle and unusual blade. Then you learn about the notch, the direction of the cutting forms, and the history of a gardener watching how other people worked. The object becomes richer as its details become understandable.

That is exactly the kind of product I want in Things Worth Wanting. Its story connects a person’s curiosity to a physical feature a reader can point to. The admiration has something solid beneath it.

For builders and product leaders, Baker’s story suggests a useful practice: watch the adjustments people make while doing real work. Ask what those adjustments accomplish. An apparently small detail may reveal a well-defined need and a promising direction for development.

I enjoy helping companies bring that level of specificity to their stories. If your product grew from a similarly revealing observation, I would welcome a conversation.

In this case, the observation became a notch. The notch became part of a blade. And the blade gave a gardener a deliberate way to meet the root beneath the next planting hole.