As Spring arrives, with the annual slight panic that we still haven’t completed all the planned Winter jobs, our lateness with the orchard pruning once again embarrasses us into action.

But at least this year I have a secret weapon!

Having used and abused a couple of cheap garden centre pruning saws over the last few years, I was recently given a Japanese ‘Silky Zubat’, the veritable samurai sword of pruning saws. So watch out orchard, a pruning ninja is heading your way.

And the crazy name? Zubat, in Japanese, is apparently the sound a samurai sword makes as it strikes its target!