The second edition of Tools & Tales is out. This time, the focus is on the women in and around our profession. To be honest, as Laura Sneeboer writes in her foreword: it was about time.
The cover features Wilma, Laura and Noa. Grandmother, mother and daughter, all three are connected to the smithy in Bovenkarspel, where we have been making garden tools since 1913.
Craftsmanship takes many forms
Sneeboer is made by people, and by no means just by the blacksmiths in the workshop. Lilian talks about her nearly thirty years with the company, from answering the phone to the online shop orders she now sends all over the world. During the 2020 lockdown, Elsa came up with the idea of delivering online shop orders by horse and cart. And Wilma Peelen was the familiar face of Sneeboer for many years, now known at Chelsea as the Queen of Chelsea. Did you know, by the way, that since May, for the first time in 113 years, there’s been a woman working in our workshop? Sophie combines her work with us with a three-year vocational training course.
Two hand trowels with a story behind them
The flowerbed trowel was already featured in the catalogue of the English company Suttons back in 1899. After coming across it at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2004, we brought it back, and it has since become one of the most popular tools in our range. The Thornett Trowel is a more recent addition. Garden designer Sid Hill found the curved hand trowel in the shed of his late grandmother, Janet. In 2024, he used it to create the Microbiome Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, and that garden won gold. Together with Sid, we created a Sneeboer version of it, named after her.
Friends of Sneeboer
Rosie Atkins, then editor-in-chief of Gardens Illustrated, met Wilma and Jaap at Bingerden in 1997. Stephanie Harrod from England and Anne Schreck from The Garden Tool Company in Texas explain how a business relationship grew into a friendship. You can also read about the ten rose spades we forged for Theresa Hildebrandt, the Steinfurther Rose Queen, and garden designer Carien van Boxtel concludes with her love for Sneeboer.
Read issue 2 of Tools & Tales below, in Dutch or in English.