The right tools for the job

ANYONE venturing into my office might presume that my desk is a disorganised mess. However, like most people with a cluttered desk, I know exactly where to find every last magazine, letter, invoice and newspaper cutting. It is the same with the garden tool shed: I know where every tool is, even the hand trowel that has, in fact, been left in the garden. I can put my hand immediately on a hose connector, ball of string or wire stretcher that lives in a crate, jumbled with dozens of other odds and sods that will be needed at some point during the season. To call the place a tool shed is a misnomer: it is the broken chair, old bicycle, log basket and bric-a-brac shed, with a bit of space for garden tools.

- John Hoyland

In stark contrast to my disorder is the tool store of a friend, where the whitewashed stone walls are hung with rows of spades, forks, hoes and every imaginable garden tool. She has pull hoes, push hoes, diamond hoes, half-moon hoes; dozens of types of spades; garden forks of all sizes, including one with a pedal, and tools whose use I can only guess at. Behind every tool is painted a black silhouette, so, when a tool is taken down, her gardeners know exactly where it belongs. The space is beautiful, awe-inspiring, with the almost-reverent atmosphere of an art gallery. But this is not merely a collection of beautiful artefacts; these tools are in constant use. The difference between my friend and I is not only her tidiness, but her range. My collection of hand tools is barely a dozen and only two or three are in regular employment.