We all need a good pair of snips, ones that can live in pockets without doing any harm, and wander round the garden with us for those unplanned moments - and these ones are great. Handy to have a couple of pairs really, as they are absolutely brilliant for flowers, fruit and veg, but arent nearly as tough as secateurs, obviously, and are for green growth only, not woody pruning. Slender blades get right in for careful snipping, red white handles show up when you (almost inevitably) leave them lying around somewhere. Niwaki means garden tree. Not very exciting, but it implies far more than that. Japanese gardens are landscapes, microcosms of nature, and the trees are all shaped to fit into those landscapes. In 1997, Niwaki's founder Jake went to Japan as a wannabe sculptor, to investigate the cultural phenomenon of the cherry blossom season, Hanami. There he discovered the gardens, the trees and later, how fabulous their tools are. Most Niwaki sharp tools are made from carbon steel -