My absolute favorite gardening tool is a hori-hori, a “Japanese weeding knife”.

The ones I love are straight-bladed, not leaf-like like a Xiphos; slightly concave on one face, heavy steel, wooden handle.

They basically work like a spade but better for weeding (and honestly vs. a generic spade you wanted a specific tool for transplanting anyway), you can stab the earth and then twist the blade to sever the roots deep enough they’ll stay dead.

My one issue is they’re so natural-colored (wood handle, blades often come blackened but it wears off to steel grey) it’s easy to lose them on the ground at night, maybe put a stripe of fluorescent paint or tape on them