
Noah x Niwaki: 31.08.23
READ MORE: The New York streetwear/Japanese gardening cross-over you never imagined possible arrives this Thursday (31 August 2023) with the release of a limited-run Niwaki x Noah collaboration.
The brainchild of original Supreme supremo, Brendon Babenzien and Estelle Bailey-Babenzien, Noah makes music, skate and surf-inspired clothes and accessories that appeal to a wide-range of creative thinkers, doers and now, gardeners.

A day in the life of Niwaraku (aka Mr Masaru Suzuki)
READ MORE: Back in late 2022, when Niwaki Will was over in Japan to visit Yuri at Niwaki Kagurazaka, meet some blacksmiths and help out with the photo shoot for our most recent catalogue, the team gathered to spend a day with friend of Niwaki, Masaru-san, also known as Niwaraku. Does that name sound familiar to you? Eagle-eyed readers will remember his starring role on the cover of the 2021 Niwaki catalogue (hat, jacket and general air of stylishness – model’s own).
Niwaraku kindly let team Niwaki tag along for a day of gentle gardening, sightseeing and spicy sushi rolls. Yuri took notes and a few pics while Soeda (our man with a cam in Japan) snapped a few more: so without further ado, here’s the report Yuri sent back to Niwaki HQ:

For those about to clip, Niwaki salutes you
READ MORE: One of the best bits about manning the stand at the Chelsea Flower Show* is the opportunity to hear how customers use the products they already own and to demonstrate which useful tools they could or should be using, but at present do not use, either because they don’t know they exist, they don’t know what do with them, or they imagine that, because the tools have been designed with specific uses in mind, using them is too specialist an art and best left to the professionals.

The NEW Niwaki Catalogue 2023 is here!
With any luck, you’re currently enjoying the cheering effect of improving weather, greening hedgerows, blossom-laden trees and the odd burst of warm sun – coupled with many more usable hours in the garden.
From this morning, when the first copies land decorously on doormats, there’s another reason to be cheerful. Yes – the 2023 Niwaki Catalogue is here, there and everywhere, and wouldn’t you know it – it’s another bumper edition, showcasing even more great stuff from Japan!

Oliver Spencer x Niwaki Collaboration: Season 2
Oliver Spencer x Niwaki collaboration: season 2
We’ve been making clothes that look great and work well both in and out of the garden for a few years now, so we were very pleased to discover Oliver Spencer shares our passion for utility, style and, crucially, gardening.
Following on from our successful collaboration in 2022, Oliver Spencer and Niwaki are excited to present some new and updated styles for this season’s offering.

Niwaki Seeds, a shiso salad recipe and a pickling workshop at Niwaki Chiltern Street – click to read more:
Lacanophobiacs – look away now. No, not those with a horror of the work of French psychotherapist and proto-deconstructionist Jacques Lacan: lacanophobia is the fear of vegetables, obviously.
Whether you’re building/tidying vegetable boxes and patiently awaiting the last frost or you’re one step ahead planting seed trays in the greenhouse, it’s not too early to start thinking about what you will grow – and eat – in the warmer months.
(click to read more)

From the spectacular to the vernacular: travel tales
In the quiet hours between Christmas and New Year, why not transport yourself through time and space to enjoy a few highlights from Niwaki Jake’s visit to Japan in November? From the spectacular to the vernacular, let Niwaki be your guide.

Perfectly balanced kitchen knives from Japan
Knives & Sharpening
If there’s one thing that unites winter festivities across the world, whether it’s Christmas in Dorset or New Year in Hokkaido, it’s the preparation of food to share with friends and family. And nothing makes prepping a meal easier and more pleasurable than a good quality knife. Everybody knows Niwaki does great garden gear, but did you know we also stock some very fine Japanese kitchen knives?
If you’re looking to upgrade your arsenal this Christmas, or you’ve already experienced Japanese knife quality and want to share your discovery with a friend or loved one, may we humbly present for your consideration a selection of rather good knives from our ever-expanding collection?

Nemawashi in November
We recently welcomed a few new members to the team, perhaps the most Niwaki* of us all: a family of pine trees, nurtured and pruned for many years by Jake at the top secret Niwaki equivalent of Area 51, transported to Semley by Niwaki Will and now immeasurably improving the otherwise drab exterior of the Niwaki HQ warehouse.
There’s a Japanese word for moving trees: nemawashi. In fact, nemawashi has a slightly more specific meaning: it literally means digging around or turning the roots, which, obviously, is what you need to do if you want to move a tree, but it also implies a level of care and respect for the all-important subterranean structure of the tree.

The Niwaki Takumi Ripstop Work Suit is here
Gardeners, craftspeople, bodgers, dreamers and flaneurs of all persuasions – suit up!

The Swallows will soon be leaving
READ: the swallows will soon be leaving / SAVE THE DATE: Niwaki Chiltern Street 1st Anniversary Party
What are you doing during the season of white dew, on the second day of the swallows leaving? No, it’s not a trick question, but if you want to answer truthfully you’ll need to be au fait with the classification of the 24 sekki (divisions) and further 72 ko (subdivisions) that constitute the Japanese microseason calendar.
Based on an ancient Chinese system, the particular calendar we’re referring to was devised in 1685 by a court astronomer called Shibukawa Shunkai, who adapted an existing Chinese calendar to match observed events closer to home.
Reading highly evocative names such as “distant thunder” (31 March–4 April), “Rainbows hide” (22-26 November) and – a personal favourite – “worms surface” (10–14 May) you may wonder how much is close observation from a diverse-range of sources and how much is poetic licence. Was Shibukawa-san updating a way of measuring time or composing a long-form poem, with the calendar as the central conceit? Or it is a bit of both: an almanac for aesthetes, if you will?
Either way, dreamers, artists, naturalists and gardeners can call on this more gentle method of noting the passing of time, which, in an increasingly digital world, has a pleasingly analogue, imprecise ring to it. It is also noteworthy how few of the entries relate to any sort of ‘useful’ activity: they are much more about noticing and appreciating the small moments in life, which is not a bad analogy for the pleasures of gardening.
Returning to our original question, what you should be doing on the 21 September (mid-way through the departure of the aforementioned swallows) is celebrating the 1st anniversary of Niwaki Chiltern Street. Please join our Founder, Jake, Chiltern Street Manager, Darren, and his assistant, Lucie, along with the rest of the Niwaki crew at the shop from 6pm for drinks, nibbles, tool chat and a special (pink!) anniversary giveaway. Call Niwaki Chiltern Street for more information.

READ: The unique advantages of Niwaki Tripod Ladders, then WATCH: Shear sharpening with Jake
Here in the environs of Niwaki HQ, the sun and rain have conspired to send our gardens and hedgerows into overdrive, presenting the perfect excuse to dust off our Niwaki Original Tripod Ladders (Ha! As if we’d let them get dusty!), don our favourite, weather-beaten Niwaki Canvas Cap, sharpen our trusty Niwaki Garden Shears and enter the fray.
We get so used to working with the Niwaki Original and En-Pro Adjustable Tripod ladders that we sometimes forget what it was like in the dark ages of ordinary, A-frame and leaning ladders. Traditional ladders were a by-word for imminent disaster. Sit-coms and cartoons of the late 20th Century were full of mishaps involving hapless heroes and heroines comically wobbling their way towards A&E (that’s ER for our North American readers). What a different comedic cultural landscape we might have known had Niwaki Jake been born decades earlier? Makes you think.
Discussing the benefits of the tripod design with a customer at Gathering (an event held at the peerless Burford Garden Co.) the other day, we were reminded just how reassuring it is to climb a three-footed ladder for the first time and discover there is no wobble. Of course, it makes perfect sense once you try it.

The 2022 Niwaki Catalogue is here!
The 2022 Niwaki Catalogue is here!
We may say this every year, but THIS year’s Niwaki catalogue really does have the finest selection of great stuff from Japan available this side of Cape Irizaki. And what’s more, it will soon be landing on doorsteps up and down the country, tantalising and enticing gardening connoisseurs with a trug-ful of tools, gear, tripod ladders, homeware and much, much more.
With over 300 different products, this year’s publication is packed tighter than a Shinjuku Line carriage at rush hour (and trust me, that’s packed). Where else will you find a Japanese Grater (p.55), the best shears money can buy (p.19), a canvas apron emblazoned with Eley Kishimoto’s iconic flash pattern (p.29) and kitchen knives (pp.54–59) so sharp they’ll make your old knives feel like something unearthed next to mammoth bones in the back of a cave? Well, there’s this website I suppose, but you can’t get your red pen out, circling what you fancy on a website can you?

Another Green World
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.

Oliver Spencer x Niwaki
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!)

Zen and the Art of Land Rover Maintenance
Of all the tropes and supposed characteristics of the Japanese way of life to have lodged in the Western consciousness, few have gained more traction – cemented in our brains by a hit book and TV series – than the notion of Japan as a land of uncluttered tidiness.
A quick visit to one of the charming but somewhat chaotic blacksmith’s workshops in Niigata would soon put paid to the idea that all Japanese are up to speed with this concept. That’s not to say there isn’t an underlying sense of order in such places: the functional simplicity of the secateurs and other fine products they create arises, in part, from the craftsman’s familiarity with the materials and tools of the trade, and these must be in the right place at the right time in the right condition. But Zen-like spaces these workshops are not.
Like most people, here at Niwaki we vacillate between the two positions. On one hand we love the sight of a tidy garden shed or a freshly clipped hedge, but on the other hand, like most gardeners, we have an ever-growing stack of broken plant pots that we’re keeping just in case, and let’s not mention the disorder and confusion that has taken hold in the back of the Niwaki Land Rover.
Whatever your take on all this, if you’ve got tools you need somewhere to store them and maybe a way to transport them, and we have several stylish new solutions to these age-old problems. We can’t guarantee you’ll achieve a higher spiritual plane as you rearrange your bits and pieces, but you can at least sleep well knowing you’ll be able to lay your hands on that spare spring for your Niwaki GR Pro Clippers or your well-used Niwaki Creanmate just when you need them (assuming you can remember where you’ve put the Tool Box itself).
Available in three sizes and two colours, these fine receptacles for stuff are smart enough to keep around the home – after all, it’s not just tools that need stashing – but tough enough to keep handy in a Landy and use non-stop in a workshop.
Click any photo to inspect the range.

Watch: Hand made in Japan
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.

Tokyo Ginkgo and Etymological Musings
Tokyo Ginkgo and etymological musings
Do not adjust your monitor: what you are seeing is indeed a faithful representation of the luminance and colour of the majestic Ginkgo biloba trees in late November and early December, shot just last week by Soeda – our man with a cam in Japan.

Niwaki HQ Showroom and Open Days News
Dispatches from Niwaki HQ Showroom: a new location and November open days
If you’ve been down to Niwaki HQ in Semley (near Shaftesbury in Dorset) over the past few months, you’ll have quite rightly sensed that change was afoot.
Over the summer (remember summer?) our showroom closed temporarily, reappearing – on more clement days and in much reduced terms – as a pop-up shop on the back of our bright yellow, modified Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser. There’s only so much you can fit on a flatbed truck – even one as stylish as ours – and although we continued to offer click and collect, it pained us to see disappointed customers who had hoped to browse the entire range.

Niwaki Chiltern Street, London W1 is Open!
Niwaki Chiltern Street is open!
On a clear, bright September morning, with the sun just warming the red bricks and stucco Neptune gargoyles of the handsome mansion block across the road, Niwaki Chiltern Street officially opened its doors to gardening aficionados, seekers of considered tools and accessories, denim freaks, and anyone else drawn in by the sheer elegance of its Jones Neville-crafted interior. We hope you will pay us a visit soon, if not today, to see the shop for yourself – we’re bursting with pride and can’t wait to show you around – but in the meantime, please let us whet your appetite with some information about how to find us and what to expect.

Great stuff from Japan, in Japan
Sitting here at Niwaki HQ, Dorset, it’s sometimes easy to forget that our products begin their lives on the other side of the world.
Your favourite Moku Trowel found its shape in the hands of a father and son team in Niigata, and the Niwaki Blue Steel Higonokami Folding Knife you secretly covet couldn’t have been made anywhere but Miki, Hyogo Prefecture, since its 5th generation knife makers are the only remaining team who can use the protected name ‘Higonokami’ for their product

Armchair Olympic travel guide
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.

The 2021 catalogue is here!
Sugoi! The 2021 Niwaki catalogue is hot off the press and winging its way to homes, greenhouses, sheds and follies across the country as you read this.
We don’t want to spoil all the fun, but you can read a little more to whet your appetite: click through to read the full story.

Box Clipping: a beginner’s guide
Box Clipping: a beginner’s guide
Although aimed at beginners, seasoned old pros should find something useful here too, and at the very least enjoy tut-tutting and disagreeing, for the first rule of box clipping is there are no rules in box clipping.

The Keihanna Commemorative Park
The Keihanna Commemorative Park
Last October, dodging typhoons, we found ourselves in Kyoto. Enquiries were made, Kimura san, Japanese gardener and friend, obliged. Hence a day filming at the Keihanna Commemorative Park, somewhere between Kyoto and Nara.

Max Cut

Mapperton Gardens

A day with @domushortus

Tsubaki
We dropped in on exhibition in Tokyo by Keishi Miyahara at the Tsubaki Atelier. Prepare for moss.

Seijun Nishihata and the Sora Botanical Garden Project

Behind the scenes: the Niwaki Forged Trowel

Black Shed Flowers

Revisiting RHS Chelsea 2019

Reiwa
Reiwa here we come!

Kiyosumi Garden

Yuletide Blog

Kyoto

Downtime in Tokyo

Pottering around nurseries

Piece Hostel Sanjo

Up Mt Kongo
Join us as we scale the peaks of Kongo san, an unspectacular mountain in Osaka. Cable cars are acceptable.

Lunch in Karuizawa

The Niwaki Stand at Chelsea Flower Show

Build Up to the Chelsea Flower Show

Short Film Screenings 8th May at Chelsea Physic Garden

Bye-bye Ascot Spring Garden Show

Niwaki Open House Spring Ladder Event and Short Film Screenings Fri 20th and Sat 21st April

Top Drawer

Back In Japan
A-chan, Kan-chan and Ya-chan, the Furukawa brothers at their family nursery in Osaka, where Jake leant his stuff.

When Monty came to visit
Whole Lotta Love – one from the vaults
In a list of big excitements that have befallen me of late – including the birth of our boy Digby more than two years ago now, and Arsenal coming from behind to beat Barcelona 2-1 at the Emirates – spotting a tree might not seem that significant…

This is how our Nata is made

Settling down for the summer

The Niwaki Garden

June: Box Clipping!

Countdown to Chelsea Flower Show

Grand Designs Live

Cherry Blossom in Japan

Winter Pine Pruning

That’s how the story goes.

End of Year

Niwaki Tree Nursery Open Day

Cupressus arizonica Tamazukuri

My Favourite Gardens in Japan

There’s Definitely Something Cooking...

Back From Japan - a tale about Mr Oosumi.

Hole HageSenter

5ftInf and Beyond

Visiting Masashi Kobo

Japan Calling

Shapton Stones

Arctic Char Sashimi

Back From Grow

It’s Official

Box Clipping Workshop

Back at Glebe Cottage
Two words. Carol Klein.

British Best Gardens

Ryoan-ji

Using the Feather Stainless Steel DE razor

Respite

Niwaki in Norway

Tetsuhiro Kitchen Knives

Sneak Preview

Japanese Food Workshop

Fan Cut Aubergine

Tree Trip to Japan

Pine Pruning

Ooh la la

Bergerac Vineyards

Warner Tree Management

Training a Yew - a short film.

Bamboo Pruning: Red & Purple

A field, somewhere.

Dai Sugi in Dorset

Tokyo Disney Land

Aerial Clutter

Niwaki Open Day

The Iwasaki Workshop

Pine Pruning at Nanshu-ji

Filming at the Wabi Sabi workshops

Chiyoda’s Silliest Pine

Tombow Colour Pencils

Mizuma dera

Nanten-en Onsen

Mazda, Honda, Daihatsu

Not bad for the loos.

Rather Fine Dai Sugi

Tondabayashi

Marqueyssac Revisted - in the mist

Japanese Zen Gardens: a review

Plans for the weekend?

Fake Box, Real Box

The Story Behind the Niwaki Tripod Ladder

Pine branches - straight or bendy.

Rootballing a Japanese White Pine

Hardcore Tree Pruning, Japan - where else?

Men in Trees

Where it all began

Japanese Tree Pruning

Now and Then

From the Niwaki vaults

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Everyone loves Komomaki - but do they work?

Lather Up!

Vallicans

Which Secateurs?

Pasties with the Mann
May or November?
Not in the Brochure One or two things didn’t make it into...
Fields, tree pruning, Landrovers, dogs. Much more fun than a day...
It’s here!

Thoughts on Cupressus Clipping

Phillyrea Latifolia - not for the first time

Josh’s Legs (and a Nata)

Steph’s Legs (and a spade)

Goyling

Job Done

Lull before the storm

Tim’s Legs

2014 Teaser

2015: the end of the Defender

Heads Up - 2014 brochure

Jonogolds

Cloudy Box in the Big Smoke

It’s been a good September

Trees in the Middle of Fields - on the Way to Veddw

Blobby Box and Cloudy Yew

Sniperoo

Come Back, Sun

Atop a 10 footer

Shapton Glass Series Whetstones

Niwaki Photo Shoot

If you could be a row of trees, what would you rather be?

Cloud Pruned ilex opaca

Sakonnet Garden

Organic Topiary

In the thick of it

Hole Artcenter, Norway

Box Clipping

Whichford Pottery

Niwaki Do Hankies

Standing Room Only

Here We Build Round The Mulberry Tree

Niwaki Crayons!

Greek Silhouettes

A Few days in Greece

This is what they mean by grubbing out an orchard

Beech Circle

Exmoor Hedge

Exploding Irish Yew!

Finger Lickin’

Anselm Kiefer landscapes at Von Ehren Nursery

NIfty Knifework in the Niwaki Kitchen

Back of a van

Just near the revolving sushi restaurant Kurazushi

Mt Fuji in the snow

Something for the weekend

The Yew Wood

Japanese Hillside Nursey

Nice Beech/Yew combo

Pines and Palms

Squeezing more from our autumnal exploration of Nara

3 x 3 = 9

Drive By Garden Appreciation

Happy Christmas - from Arashiyama

Voulez-vous prunez avec moi, ce soir?

Evening Sun

Obsessions: Big Hedges and Landrovers

Roots n Rocks

Yet more from Taimadera (Taimadera pt 3)

Taimadera pt 2

Taimadera, pt 1

Somewhere in Nara

Gio-ji Temple, Kyoto

Niwaki 2013 Brochure - Typo Quizz

Japanese Gardens

Back from Japan

Chalara fraxinea

The Hole Artcenter, Norway

Westonbirt Arboretum Limes

Cloud Pruned Box Through Hipstamatic Eyes

Prunus lusitanica fungi

If it clips, clip it.

Green Finger

Cosmic Slop

The Return of the Blob

In between the showers...

Another Day, Another Dollop of Organic Topiary

Cottesbrooke Gardeners’ Fair

Niwaki meets Toast

Blobs, Puddings, or Mushrooms-Without-Stalks?

Back To Belgium

Niwaki Meets the Conran Shop

Belgium

Viva Las Vegas

Happy Customer?

Irish Yews

Weather on the A30

Remnants of a beech hedge

Their Time Was Up

The First Clip

Bed Time Taxonomy

Open For Business

Yeovil Schmovil - but not this time.

A good load

Hedge Laying Competition

Red Pine Pruning at the Furukawa Nursery

What the?

Horny? Blimey!

Beech woods in the middle of a hedge
