In 2002, I fell in love with a business book by Paul Hawken called “Growing a Business.” Hawken wrote the book in the 80’s and used his own business, Smith & Hawken, as an example of successful and sustainable business practices. Smith & Hawken started as a mail order tool catalogue, importing Bulldog solid forged garden tools from England and distributing them throughout the USA.
After Gardenware had been running for a couple of years and we had introduced a range of new products from other importers, I felt ready to import our own brand and become the sole distributors of that brand. I began scouring the internet for overseas companies trying to find that undiscovered garden product that would take Australia by storm. Very few if any companies returned my emails.
At that time we had an office in Coolum Beach, QLD that had a small display in the front open to the public. A man walked in and we spoke about Gardenware’s difficulties finding quality gardening products and he mentioned that his brother in law was once the importer of Bulldog Tools.
First ever flyer
“Great stuff,” he said. The name, Bulldog Tools, rang a bell. When he left the store, I searched the internet and found the company in the UK.
They replied to my email saying they were very interested in Gardenware being their Australian distributor. The catalogue they sent me in the email was out of this world, like a dream come true. They had a huge range of garden tools that were way above anything on the market in Australia – and a 200 year history and reputation to back it up. I was very excited and placed an order straight away. I then began building our own Australian catalogue and adding the Bulldog products to our webstore and researching how best to market them in Australia.
We received this catalogue from Bulldog about 9 years ago when we expressed interest in their tools
Deep into my work putting together the marketing pieces of this new brand for Gardenware, it dawned on me where I heard the Bulldog name from. Could it have been the tools company Smith & Hawken imported from the “Growing a Business” book by Paul Hawken? I went and grabbed my copy and sure enough it was. Bulldog Tools was the brand that started Smith & Hawken and now I was the Australian distributor.
Over ten years later, Bulldog Tools still remain at the core of the Gardenware range. Not only in sales percentage but in the guiding philosophy of the type of products Gardenware offers and the position in the market we claim.
Products like Bulldog Tools are high quality. There is little room for middle men and wholesale distribution. That is why you will not find Bulldog Tools in the larger chains and hardware stores. We buy direct from the manufacturer and sell direct to the gardener, so our longstanding and loyal customers can be assured they are getting the best gardening equipment at the best price.
The feedback that we have received from you, our customers, around Bulldog Tools has been positive and appreciative that we import these tools into Australia. We also love using Bulldog Tools in our own garden and have gifted these tools to gardening friends.
Love using Bulldog tools in our garden!
So there you have it – Now you know that story behind why Gardenware fell in love with Bulldog Tools!
Check out one of our early videos.
Do you own any Bulldog tools? What has your experience been? We would love to hear it – please share in the comments below.
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Thanks everyone for your comments…we have been super busy packing Bulldog tools to send to their new homes so there has been a delay in this reply 🙂
We don’t stock the full range of Bulldog tools as their range is so extensive however we often add new Bulldog items due to an inquiry for a product we don’t stock…thanks to Jeff we now stock the long handled digging forks which have been popular…
And Peter, the stainless steel widger looks nifty…Interesting question about the spade – I do use my rabbiting spade a bit in the garden but being kinder to the worm population is a good thing 🙂 so maybe I will be more inclined the use my fork more often! i do get a twinge of guilt when I chop a worm in half 🙁
May everyone’s gardens continue to prosper!
I purchased a Bulldog spade several months ago. When I unpacked it I was a bit dissapointed because it felt heavy and the weight distribution seemed wrong. Too much weight near the end of the spade. I put it in the shed not thinking too much about it. Recently we were in a rush as usual and needed a spade in a hurry. The only one available was the bulldog so I grabbed it and hurried out to the job. I got a big surprise because as soon as I started using it it felt just right. Nice and solid and that weight distribution was just made for the job. Now it has become my number one spade. Thanks for a great product.
I have the Bulldog Ratchet Lopping Shears, which are wonderful because they have extendable handles – which I really need in a lot of situations when pruning my shrubs and trees. Also the Bulldog Digging Fork, very good for digging in the vege garden.
If you only have two tools in the shed, they should be the Bulldog rabbiting shovel and garden fork. I don’t know how I survived without them. Their strength is amazing.
I too scoured the internet for a “decent” long-handled Garden Fork – and found Bulldog in the UK. They referred me to their Australian distributor when I asked if they sent their products to Australia by post. And Gardenware got me two long-handled garden forks.
They are absolutely lovely to use. I managed to break one Chinese made “cheap” I bought at a certain big Green hardware store and a couple of different Aussie made forks as well. Their problem (apart from some fearsome Aussie Gilgai clay we were digging at the time) was the lack of a solid forged joint between the fork and the handle).
I managed to get our initial garden beds dug with the “inferior” tools, which makes it a lot easier to dig over our established garden beds for the “better” Bulldog version. But the ease of digging with a Bul;dog garden fork has been proved as we expanded the productive area of our wonderful organic home Vegetable Patch.
England might no longer be a mighty power, but Bulldog tools are mighty indeed.
Bulldog tools are ace!! I’ve said it before and have no hesitation in confirming this view. A significant percentage of my garden is difficult ground, made so by the easement for a stormwater drain down the length and across the bottom of the block. Typically (unfortunately) the careless unthinking couldn’t-care-less clowns doing the work either sold the topsoil they took out or placed it at the bottom of the trench when filling the hole. Of course you can never get all the soil removed from a hole back into that hole. Result: preponderance of humus- deficient “soil” with large clods of clay and the occasional piece of rock that is slowly becoming soil with generous helpings of gypsum and mulch from the local green waste processsing facility. The point of all this? No garden fork could survive long without ending up with bent or broken prongs. Until Bulldog came along that is. A further testament to the quality is that having purchased a second fork (with a much-appreciated longer handle) I cut off the two outer prongs of the original fork. This is now my most-used garden digging tool; it makes difficult ground much gentler on one’s muscles since all the effort is concentrated on a smaller area. Easier on the back, but consequently tougher on the two remaining prongs. Several years and still going strong….
One of the prongs that I cut off I fitted into a handle to make a single-prong hand tool that also gets a lot of use. I’m still wondering what to do with the second one!
One product you might be interested in is the Gardman stainless steel widger — again a UK product I think (I bought mine there) Much better than the plastic ones, especially when it comes to teasing seedlings out of a propagation tray with minimum damage to the root ball. You can see it at
https://www.podington.co.uk/stainless-steel-widger.html
Now a question… Where did the love affair between Australian gardeners and a spade or shovel as a digging tool come from? Unless one has very dry sandy soil with little or no humus content a fork is far easier to use and is kinder to the worm population!
Thanks for all you do to support the home gardener!
Cheers, Peter