Toni’s Tool Tips | Hori Hori

There’s nothing quite like a Hori Hori knife to get the job done. If you don’t own one yet, put it on your list when you go shopping. Every gardener who owns one loves it.

The Hori Hori knife was created by gardeners in Japan, the word Hori means “to dig” in Japanese and hori-hori is the onomatopoeia for the sound of digging.

A good Hori Hori knife is made of stainless steel, which makes it heavy duty enough to compensate for diminished hand strength when cutting sod or dealing with clay soil, and also means it won’t rust. Its blade is heavily serrated on one side and very sharp on both sides.

This extraordinary multi-purpose tool does so many chores: It cuts, saws, digs, weeds, separates, splits and makes a good measuring device for planting bulbs.

The first time I used my Hori Hori knife, I had to remove some very stubborn clumps of bamboo in my front yard. The knife was unstoppable; I was amazed how easily it cut through those gnarly roots—so much so, I went on to use it to split some overgrown perennials.