BY JENNIFER HARTLEY
Saws, sickles, Barracuda clippers, silky Pocketboy blades or a Great Dixter Tickling Fork. To the uninitiated, they may sound like torture devices, but for the experienced gardener, they are magical instruments that help create the beauty around us.
As green thumbs everywhere come out of hibernation looking for new tools, the Gardener’s Kit on Langford Street has a wide selection of items that you can’t get anywhere else.
The shop, which opened in January 2020, is the dream of local professional gardener Susanne Osmond. She discovered high-quality gardening and pruning tools made by the Dutch company Sneeboer on a work trip to England a number of years ago and decided to import them, hoping other gardeners would appreciate them. They do.
“I really took a chance,” Osmond says. “I started off selling to the horticultural community in my backyard, then went to trade shows, and then the business took off and here we are today.”
Osmond is one of two retailers in Canada selling Sneeboer, and she has a wide inventory of other tools, including uniquely shaped Japanese hand instruments. She also carries all the goods you need to take care of them. Everything is available through her website or in the warehouse shop.
Another of her great finds were the light, no-wobble Hasegawa tripod ladders. “The Japanese inventors are known for their stunning workmanship as well as their creative and distinctive shapes,” Osmond notes. She is the exclusive Western Canadian distributor for them.
With the long-range forecast looking beautiful for spring and summer, there will be a lot of happy gardening enthusiasts in our region.