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Japanese tools are universally celebrated for the precision and purpose along with their elegant, elemental beauty. Takumi master craftsmen devote their lives to the art of toolmaking for others in turn to exercise their mastery at using them.
Having lived in Kyoto for a few years ourselves, we still possess some hand tools for gardening, carpentry, and printmaking that we purchased when we made Japan our home. We cherish and use these tools to this day. Our appreciation for these, the artisans across Japan, and our love of Japanese gardening are what initially drew us toward Niwaki Japanese Garden Tools.
Working with Niwaki tools over the ensuing years, coming to really enjoy them in hand as well as their abilities, we now rely on many of these among our gardening kit as they are mainstays there going with us to every garden visit we make. For this reason we keep them among the essential tools stocked at shop Horta Culture.
Founded by Jake Hobson who was drawn from England to Japan to further study sculpture, Niwaki was born of Hobson’s passion for the art of Japanese pruning. Soon after arriving in Japan, Hobson was swept up into the Niwaki methods of artfully pruning trees at an Osaka nursery.
When Hobson returned to West Sussex and shifted to gardening fulltime, he began importing the Japanese garden tools required. While Niwaki (庭木) is the Japanese word for "garden trees" it also describes this high art of sculpting trees as well as the resulting trees themselves so it only seemed right to name the new line of Japanese Garden Tools after the art.
Today, Niwaki offers a wide variety of garden tools as well as other specialties unique to Japan. As with any who use these, we delight at their usefulness and the thought put into each design. We also love discussing their finer points and applications so please do not hesitate to come to us with any questions.
