En septembre, Niwaki arrive à Paris dans la superbe boutique BACSAC®, sur la rive gauche. Niwaki y présentera une sélection soignée de ses outils de jardinage et accessoires japonais méticuleusement manufacturés ainsi que des produits d’exception venus du Japon. Plusieurs ateliers floraux seront également animés par certains des fleuristes les plus inspirants de Paris, offrant aux clients l’occasion de découvrir le savoir-faire de la marque de première main. Rejoignez-nous pour explorer, expérimenter et repartir avec le meilleur du design et de l’artisanat japonais, en boutique du 17 au 27 septembre.

Terremoto is a 27 person strong landscape architecture studio split between Los Angeles and San Francisco. David Godshall established the company eleven years ago with the aim of creating gardens that allowed his team to creatively respond to social, environmental and political issues. In Niwaki Field Report No.1, he shares a selection of projects to help explain how and why Terremoto does its thing.

In case you didn’t know, Jake likes trees. In particular, Cryptomeria japonica – also known as Sugi – a fast-growing, evergreen conifer native to Japan. A self-professed obsessive, Jake spends a lot of time thinking, doodling, writing, and talking about these tall beings. He’s even growing a few here in Dorset. He returned to Kitayama to explore their history and meet the people who grow them, and it’s all written up in the Niwaki Field Report No.1.

In fair weather and outside of the holiday season, the three-hour drive from Niwaki HQ on the Wiltshire/Dorset border to the Petalon farm in Cornwall is a welcome gift to an overworked brain. Three hours of idle introspection while listening to a handful of albums from start to finish (no skipping), or perhaps time to catch up on an edifying gardening podcast*. But those leisurely pursuits would have to wait for the return journey; instead, I chose to repeat, like a mantra, the name “Petalon” to try and avoid referring to my hosts’ business as “Pelaton” by mistake. And what do you think happened as soon as I opened my mouth?

Back in the heady days of 2014 when Petalon was founded in East London, the play on words signalled the fact that founder Florence was cycling to the flower market at 4am, returning home to arrange her floral bounty before hopping back on her bike to deliver her creations all across London. A lot of healthy cycling, but not a timetable that is hugely conducive to family life.

By 2020, life was moving on, the business was growing, and children were exerting their disruptive influence, so, with husband James now managing the commercial side of things, they sniffed out a farmhouse being sold at auction. The place was in dire need of ‘modernisation’, but they saw potential. As I was to discover, Florence and James dream big and see potential where some just see difficulties and hard work.

By the time you read this the RHS Chelsea show garden designers, planters, builders and bodgers are well along with their horticultural alchemy, briefly converting the 23 acres of show ground into some of the most imaginative gardens in the world.

It must be something in the West Country soil: Niwaki UK HQ (Semley, Dorset) and The Newt (Bruton, Somerset) have a lot in common, not least the aspiration to spend as much time as possible in the garden.

In early March we spent a day at Hortus Loci, a specialist nursery in Hampshire that grows for a wide range of high profile gardeners (and is also open to the public) to find out more about the Avanade Intelligent Garden; one of several gardens to watch out for at RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year.

A year in the making and many more in the planning, the first Niwaki Field Report is in-store and online now! Click here to find out more.

What colour is springtime? Stepping out into the garden or the woods near Niwaki HQ in Dorset, or Hibiya Park, Tokyo (pictured - thanks Yuri!) the answer would seem to be green. Every new leaf, over-saturated with chlorophylls, is busy absorbing blue and red light, reflecting unwanted green light back to our eyes. Under the canopy of a freshly minted beech tree or the majestic candelabra of the flowering horse chestnuts, the air itself seems almost to have turned green.

The greenness of spring seems beyond doubt, so you might be surprised to learn that in Japanese, and indeed many other languages, green is not such a clearly delineated concept. In fact, the colour word most likely to be used in relation to spring in Japan is the noun “ao” 青 and its adjective “aoi” 青い, which could be translated as “fresh” or “newly grown” or “unripe” and carries with it a strong sense of blue as well as green. The kanji itself (青) originates from the Chinese word “qing” 青 which again implies “blue-green freshness”, and is used almost exclusively with naturally occurring phenomena, like the sky, grass and the ocean.

When Oliver Spencer, friend and customer, approached us to collaborate on a range of workwear, we jumped at it. After all, everyone loves hard-wearing canvas work trousers, especially stylish ones, and what could be more fun than speccing up a new gilet? (Golden rule of gilets: pockets, and lots of ’em!)

In amongst the madness of 2021, Soeda-san took a trip to Niigata to document a few of the craftspeople (and, in some cases, their grannies and their cats) whose expertise sets Niwaki products apart from the crowd. Gain an insight into how the raw materials are forged, hammered, sharpened and polished into finished products. It’s physical, messy, sometimes dangerous work, that, to the untrained eye, approaches a magical process. We hope you’ll agree the end results make it all worth while, and what’s more, it’s fascinating to watch.

If you were heading to Japan for the Olympics, which you’re not and neither are we for reasons too obvious and depressing to go into, we would definitely recommend mixing spectating business with gardening pleasure and taking a trip to a few of the country’s otherworldly gardens and temples.