A New Gardening Venture – Hasegawa Tripod Ladders

During a recent trip to England, I attended an horticultural symposium at Great Dixter and then stayed on for an additional two weeks to work alongside the Dixter gardening staff and students as they prepared the garden for spring.

Pruning was one of the major jobs we were tasked with and, you guessed it, much of the pruning required ladder work. There was one very choice ladder to work on – an incredibly well-designed ladder made by a Japanese company called Hasegawa. You had to wait your turn to get your hands on the ladder because there was only the one of its kind and probably half a dozen people pruning something at any one time.

*Matt on a 10’ Hasegawa tripod, pruning the Ligustrum quihoui in the Long Border at Great Dixter*

I spent one afternoon pruning a climbing rose with the aid of the Hasegawa ladder and was so impressed by its comfort and stability that when I got back to Victoria I started looking for them. I was sure someone would have discovered them and brought them to Canada. Surprise, surprise, I could only find them in the U.S. – the closest location was in Portland, Oregon. Well, I was making a trip to Portland for a Hardy Plant Seminar, I decided I’d take my truck and bring some back with me.

In spite of all the hassle, not to mention taxes and duties, I brought back four ladders. My gardening crew and I worked with them for a few months and were delighted with them – their wide, stable base; deep, comfortable steps and work platforms; clever adjustable 3rd leg; a chain that attaches the tripod leg to the main ladder frame so that it will never slip away; rubber ‘boots’ that cover the metal feet to allow for use on hard surfaces. Oh, and, incredible light weight because they are made of hollow aluminum, did I mention that? All of these features made our frequent work on ladders feel so much safer and secure, they quickly became a much valued and indispensable piece of gardening gear.

And so, the inevitable occurred: I thought, someone must sell them in Canada. I could sell them! I wrote to the fellow who sells them in the UK and he put me in touch with the folks at Hasegawa in Japan. And, as they say, the rest is history.

We now have a full selection of ladders stored at our warehouse in Richmond and several retail locations in and around Vancouver and Victoria. And a new warehouse has just been set up in Toronto. We have been selling the ladders to professional arborists and gardeners, garden designers, orchardists, hops growers, and all sorts of keen home gardeners.

The ladders are amazing, there’s nothing like them on the market here!

Susanne

At this time last year I had just returned from a second trip to England, exhausted but exhilarated from three weeks of intensive horticultural training and practical work experience at Great Dixter.

I had visited Dixter for the very first time in September 2013 to attend a week-long horticultural symposium and it was so fantastic and the gardens so impressive in September (and promising to go on being so right through October), that I knew before the week was out that I had to come back again

*one of my favourite sections of the long border in September 2013*

My return was in winter for a number of reasons: because I wanted to see the bare bones of the garden in order to better understand how the incredibly full plantings that I saw in September were physically achieved. And, at a quieter time of year in my own gardening business, it was easier for me to be away for a longer chunk of time.

*the long border on a sunny February day*

My first week was spent as a participant in the February symposium. This is a practical session held when the garden is closed to the public, with fewer participants and more hands-on practice, focused on pruning techniques and preparing beds for the coming year – as this is what the staff and students are working on as they prepare the garden for opening day at the beginning of April.

*one of Fergus’ ‘mind maps’ detailing the work that needs to take place before opening day*

Our group had lots of lessons and demonstrations of Fergus’ pruning techniques – hydrangeas, roses, honeysuckle, jasmine, spiraea, fuchsia, buddleia, cotinus, bamboo, on and on the list goes.

And then we were paired up and given our own assignments, receiving specific instructions about what we were to achieve.

*‘after’ successfully pruning the spiraea*

The subsequent two weeks of my trip were spent volunteering in the gardens with the Dixter staff and students. One of the major projects undertaken during my stay was the preparation of the beds in the orchard garden.

*‘after’ - the bare bones of the orchard garden, everything labelled and marked*

I am largely a self-taught gardener - for years I have culled what I needed to know from books and magazines, a short course here, a short course there, slowly but steadily directing my own horticultural education, every year gaining more skill, confidence and practical experience. But working and learning at Dixter proved to be the ideal demonstration and training ground, vastly increasing my understanding of how to achieve the results I wanted and adding quite a few new tricks to my repertoire. It’s a totally inspiring and exciting horticultural destination for all gardeners, whether to work, study or just marvel at the beauty.

The symposia are just one of a number of educational programs on offer at Dixter - they are an action-packed week, each day full to overflowing with lectures and slideshows mixed with practical time spent in the gardens, examining and discussing the details of border design, plant selection, maintenance and planting strategies and techniques. Details here: http://www.greatdixter.co.uk/learning/symposia/