Jill Bailey of Jill's Garden and Creative Maintenance Service said she and her workers assessed hazards before beginning each job. Those hazards could include things like tomos (shafts) and stumps.
Workers wore safety glasses when using weed whackers and gloves when using trimmers. They never worked too far above ground level.
Ms Bailey said she used disposable gloves when working with sprays, even though all the sprays she used were organic.
"Safety in the workplace is number one," said Ms Bailey.
Other gardening hazards included sharp secateurs and white-tailed spiders.
She said gardeners should use a mask when working with compost to avoid the risk of legionnaires' disease.
Ms Bailey said it was important for gardening businesses to have sensible employees and to warn them about safety hazards.
She advised people to get professionals in to work on big properties that had been neglected for a long time.
Nationwide, there were 54,519 ACC claims for injuries related to gardening last year. Those claims cost $36,172,401.
Again, the most common claims were for soft tissue injury, suffered by 35,121 gardeners. Lacerations, puncture wounds and stings were the next most common injuries, with 12,060 claims.
Concussion or brain injury was the cause of 73 gardening-related claims last year.
Frances Palmer of the Nursery and Garden Industry New Zealand said common gardening injuries included scratches from thorns, cuts from knives and secateurs, and sore backs and wrists from bending and pulling.
More serious injuries included pulled and strained muscles from digging and lifting, and legionnaires' disease from soil and composts.
In all cases gardeners needed to be sensible about how they worked, for example by getting help to lift things and always taking heed of the warning labels on bagged mixes and spray bottles.
By the numbers
* 796 ACC claims for gardening injuries
* Cost of $407,905
* Soft tissue injuries most claimed for
* Nationwide: 54,519 ACC claims for gardening injuries
