PDF – Japanese Gardening Tools 2 Adult Coloring Book – 90 Days in Kyoto

Part 2 of the Japanese Gardening Tools Adult Coloring Pages is ready for you to download and color in. This part features Japanese brooms and maintenance (手入れ – te-ire) tools, as well as the famous and practical three-legged aluminium ladders and a bamboo saw.

From top left, clockwise:

Takehiki (竹引き) – Bamboo saw, often used with replaceable blades. Bamboo is very hard and the blades need to be exchanged often. Using a pruning saw would render it useless within an hour of work.

Takegushi (竹串) – Bamboo skewer, used to pluck weeds out of soft moss without ripping it. You push down the moss with the skewer to keep the moss connected to the sandy soil underneath and remove the weed with the other hand. I’ve used it so often and found it  very helpful.

Download Part 2 of the Japanese Gardening Tool Coloring pages here: Japanese Gardening Tools 2 Adult Coloring Book – 90 Days in Kyoto

Hōki (箒) – Your humble broom, usually less compact than what it looks like on the drawing. Made of a light bamboo stick and long wide, soft bristles. It’s a wonderful tool to sweep large spaces. It takes some time getting used to hold and sweep, since it has to be held hovering above the ground and moved with a light touch across the surface. Apply too much pressure and it gets old and hard really fast.

Tebōki (手帚) – Hand broom with bamboo bristles bound with wire. In the beginning, they are soft and used for delicate surfaces like moss. After weeks or months of use, the thinner bristles break off and the stronger, harder bristles remain, making the tebouki more suitable for harder surfaces, like pavement, on gravel or rocks. In Kyoto, we usually carried a hard tebouki and a soft tebouki with us for the morning maintenance round.

Mi (ミ) – In Kyoto usually known as Mi, in the Kanto area as Te-Mi (テミ), a large leaf pan. Traditionally crafted out of bamboo, it is now mostly available in bright orange or olive green plastic. Again, another item I think every gardener should own as it makes cleanup so much more efficient.

Sankyaku-Hashigo (三脚はしご) – A three-legged or tripod garden ladder. Hashigo usually refers to any kind of ladder. Since I learned most of my garden maintenance and pruning in Japanese gardens, I was surprised to find that there are no tripod ladders in Europe or Western gardens. Although these are so easy to set up and very safe to use. Never wobbly, they give you access to tree canopies that you would otherwise not reach with a straight ladder. Also, the aluminum makes them lightweight (I can carry even the longest ladders gracefully) and they are very quick to move around, so you never have to lean over dangerously to reach that last branch. I’m in love with these, I really am…