"Newbie" wrote in message
...
I am looking for a tall shepherds hook, to be planted into the ground
and with 3-4 hooks to hand bird feeders and/or seasonal plants.

Local shops don't have anything suitable, so it has to be mail-order,
making it difficult to judge quality etc from pictures alone.

Two questions for the experienced experts he

(1) Which companies make the best product?

(2) I have seen two ways of securing them to the ground. One has 3-5
spikes that you step on and push into the ground. Another has just the
pole, but the bottom is like a corkscrew with threads and needs to be
screwed in. Which one would be stronger and more secure as different
feeders and plants are hung from the top?

Thanks for any and all advice.

I've had both prongs and cork screw on my hanging poles. I can't answer the
first question as to the manufacturer. I bought them in stores and can no
longer remember who made them.

I think it all depends on what kind of ground you're jamming these poles
into. All of mine leaned or fell over because of weight, wind, time or all
of the combined conditions. I solved this by getting the round, cardboard
ice cream containers from our Baskin & Robbins (they were a freebee) and
filling them with a QuickCrete mix, them setting the poles in those. After
they set up I buried them in the ground to cover the concrete 'anchor'.
Worked like a charm. The Sunday I was 'planting' the poles I ran out of
daylight and left one unburied, sitting in the flower bed and one I moved to
the deck to get it out of the driveway. Both of these became movable feasts
and stayed upright even though never buried. The one on the deck ended up
being permanent and evolved into a hummer feeder. I had two baskets of the
hummer's favorite flowers and two hummingbird feeders on it.

Val