The questions we are asked most.

A forged hand trowel, YL-TRW-01, at 280 g, and a three-tine weeding fork, YL-FRK-04, at 260 g. The trowel lifts and transplants; the fork loosens soil around a weed so you can pull it without dragging the bed apart. Add the five-tine hand rake, YL-RAK-11, if the surface crusts over. That trio covers sowing, lifting and weeding in a bed up to about two square metres. Buy the pruner next, when you start cutting stems.

They do different jobs. The trowel is 280 g with a broad, dished blade for scooping and planting out a seedling. The transplanting spade, YL-SPD-02, is 420 g with a narrow blade and a brass ferrule, made to slide down the side of a pot-bound root ball and lift it whole. Using a trowel for that work bends the neck. If you raise plants from seed and move them on, both earn their place; if you sow direct, the trowel is enough.

Heavy clay needs a forged head and a strong socket, because you will lever as much as you dig. The trowel, the weeding fork and the transplanting spade all have forged heads; the narrow spade with its brass ferrule is the one for clay. Sandy loam and compost mixes are light, so the deep scoop, YL-SCS-07, or the five-tine rake does the work faster. In stony ground use a fork rather than a trowel, so a tine gives way instead of a blade snapping.

A bypass pruner cuts with two curved blades passing each other, which leaves a clean slice on a living stem and lets the cut seal. YL-PRN-03 closes on green wood up to 20 mm. An anvil pruner presses the stem against a flat bed; it is meant for dead wood, and on live tissue it crushes the cambium and leaves a bruise that invites rot. For roses, fruit canes and soft shrub stems, buy bypass. Keep an anvil pair for dry branches if you need one.

For a cutting or digging head, yes. High-carbon steel takes a keener bevel — ours is ground at roughly 20 degrees — and holds it longer in grit and clay. Stainless is softer and loses an edge faster, which is why we use it only for the thin, springy blade of the garden scissors. The price of carbon is rust: it must be dried and oiled after use. If you will not oil a tool, buy stainless and accept a duller edge.

A forged head is hammered to shape from a billet, then ground and finished. A pressed head is stamped out of sheet steel and bent into form. Forging leaves more steel where the load lands, so the socket and the neck resist bending when you lever a trowel through clay. A pressed head is lighter and cheaper, and it folds at the neck under the same force. Every digging head we sell is forged, and the product page says so.

The tang is the steel stub that runs into the handle. The socket is the collar where the head grips the handle and takes the load. The ferrule is the ring — brass on our transplanting spade — that stops the ash splitting at the top of the socket. A loose tang rattles, a cracked socket lets the head twist, and a detached ferrule lets the handle split. Those three joints fail before the blade does, so they are what we inspect and what the warranty covers.

Yes. Our tangs are pinned rather than glued, so a handle can be drilled out and a new one fitted. We hold ash blanks for the trowel, the fork, the rake and the scoop; write with the SKU and we will quote the blank and the freight. The dibber, being turned ash with no head, is not designed to be re-handled. If you would rather we did the fitting, send the tool to the registered office and we will return it.

Digging heads leave us with a single bevel at roughly 20 degrees. To bring an edge back, clamp the head and draw a fine-cut file along the bevel at that same angle, following the original grind rather than adding a second facet. Five to ten strokes per side of a trowel is usually enough. Do not file the flat face, or you will lose the bevel. Finish with a few passes on a medium stone, then wipe and oil the head.

Both, in that order. A file removes metal quickly and is the right tool for a blunt or nicked trowel, fork or spade edge, or for resetting a bevel. A stone, used wet or dry, refines the edge and takes out file scratches. Never file the hardened SK5 blade of the pruner across the cutting face; a few light strokes on a fine stone, following the existing angle, is enough. An oiled stone clogs less on carbon steel.

Sharpen when the tool starts crushing instead of cutting: a trowel that skids off clay, a fork that tears roots, a pruner that leaves a bruised stem. In a busy plot that is once a month through the growing season and once at the end of it. Stop when the bevel meets the flat face cleanly and the edge catches a fingernail. Stop sharpening for good when the bevel has widened noticeably or the blade has lost a millimetre of width.

It means keeping the blade clean between plants so you do not carry disease from one stem to the next. Wipe the blade with alcohol or a dilute household disinfectant before you move from a sick plant to a healthy one, and after cutting anything with canker, black spot or dieback. Cut just above a bud or a branch collar so the cut can seal. Clean sap off the SK5 blade the same day, then oil it, because sap traps moisture.

Because carbon steel has no chromium layer to protect it. Water, soil acids and the minerals in clay start a film of iron oxide within hours, and a tool put away damp in a closed trug will spot overnight. Rust on the surface is shallow and removable; left wet for weeks it pits, and pitting is permanent. The fix is a habit: wipe the head dry, run an oiled rag over it, and hang the tool instead of dropping it in a bucket.

Any light machine oil, camellia oil or a garden-tool oil will do. Wipe the head dry after every session in damp soil, then pass an oiled rag over the steel; once a month in season is enough for a tool in regular use, and after every use in coastal or humid air. Avoid cooking oil, which turns sticky and collects grit, and never oil a handle you intend to grip hard. A drop of oil on the ferrule keeps it from seizing.

No. Surface rust from storage, a damp shed or a wet trug is a maintenance matter, not a manufacturing fault, and it comes off with steel wool and oil. We do not accept a change-of-mind return on a tool that has been stored damp. What is a fault is a head that arrives rusted through the packing, a pitted blade, or corrosion under the ferrule that has loosened the socket — photograph those on the day of delivery.

Dry first, oil second, hang third. Do not store carbon steel in a sealed plastic box, because condensation forms inside it. Hang tools head-down or lay them on a dry shelf with air around them, and keep the ash out of direct sun so it does not dry and shrink away from the tang. A cotton bag is better than a plastic one. Check the heads once a month, wipe off any blush of rust and re-oil. Re-oil a handle with linseed once a year.

We pack in Hong Kong, normally within 3 working days of cleared payment, and the lead date on your confirmation governs. Transit is typically 5 to 12 working days by recorded courier, longer for freight. Import duty, VAT or sales tax and any brokerage charge in your country are yours unless we have agreed DDP in writing. We send the packing note and the tracking reference as soon as the parcel leaves the bench.

Photograph it the day it arrives — the whole tool, the edge or the bend, the split at the ferrule, and the carton — then email us with CLAIM in the subject line and the order reference. We acknowledge within two working days. A bent neck, a cracked socket or a split handle gets a replacement tool or handle blank. For a blunt edge we send a new head, or you can correct it with a file and a stone. Keep the packaging until the claim closes.

Not for change of mind. A tool that has been worked in soil, has a bevel cut into it, or has oil and grit ground into the ash cannot be resold, so it stays with you. What is still covered is a genuine fault: a snapped tang, a cracked socket, a detached ferrule, or a tine weld that lets go. Report that with photographs and we replace it under the 12-month warranty, whether or not the tool has been used.

Once the returned tool reaches us and has been inspected, we refund within 10 working days. The money goes back by the method that paid the invoice, in USD; bank charges raised on your side are not refundable. Change-of-mind returns must be with us inside the 14-day window, which runs from the delivery scan. A faulty tool does not depend on that window — the warranty runs for 12 months from delivery.

XiNUo-D Trading Co., Limited, a Hong Kong trading company, is the legal seller. Its registered office is the address in the box on this page, and its public mailbox is the one shown there. The same company issues every quotation and every invoice, so the name on your invoice, your packing note and this website should match. If it does not, write to us before you pay anything.

No. This site is an enquiry desk. There is no basket, no checkout and no card field, and we never ask for card numbers by email. You send an enquiry with the SKU and the quantity, we confirm stock, price in USD and a lead date in writing, and if you accept we issue a formal invoice with bank details. Tools are packed once the invoice is settled.

We do not drop-ship from a third party. Tools are bought in small lots against approved samples, inspected 200 pieces at a time for socket play, ferrule tightness and handle straightness, oiled and packed by us in Hong Kong. Heads are forged carbon steel, with stainless or SK5 where a thin cutting blade is needed; handles are oiled ash and FSC hardwood. Every lot is weighed and its bevel measured before it runs.

We hold the fields you send in an enquiry, and any order or claim correspondence sits with that order. We do not sell data and we run no advertising cookies. Enquiries that do not become an order are deleted after 24 months; order and accounting records are kept for 7 years as Hong Kong requires. Our privacy notice sets out your rights under the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. If you are unhappy, write to us first; you may also complain to the PCPD in Hong Kong.