Haws "Handy Can" - 0.7 Litre Watering Can

When I was young, I dreamed of being able to afford a decent Haws watering can. With a little surreptitious wrangling I started my collection with the Handy Can. The design has changed very little over the years, yet my oldest is still performing just as the day I persuaded my mother to buy it for me.
Since then, a few more models have graced my collection. I like Haws watering cans because they’re perfectly balanced and deliver water gently and evenly. They make me feel like a real gardener, even after I have just killed another orchid.

This best selling 0.7 litre design is useful for seed sowing, seedlings and for indoor plants. It is supplied with a removable round brass face rose. The fine rose directs the water straight up so that it descends as a fine rain that falls gently enough that it won’t wash fine seeds out of place or break stems of the most delicate of seedlings.

The length of the spout ensures that a significant pressure offers an accurate shower that can be controlled with a slight movement of ones arm. The “Handy Can” really should be called “A balanced mechanism for delivering the perfect shower of water to precious seedlings and plants.”… but I suppose that is a little bit of a mouthful.

Specifications:

• Capacity: 0.7 Litres
• Weight when full: 0.8 Kg
• Expected Life: 10 years.
• Supplied with: Removable round brass face rose.

In addition to the traditional Haws Dark Green, this gorgeous object of desire is now available in a range of beautiful gem-like colours: Blue, Cream, Lilac, Pink, Sage Green, Sky Blue, Silver and Yellow.

How John Haws got it right from the start...
Over one hundred years ago in 1886 John Haws of Clapton, London obtained a patent for an improved watering pot. The patent read:
‘This new invention forms a watering pot that is much easier to carry and tip, and at the same time being much cleaner, and more adapted for use than any other put before the public.’

John Haws first worked out his improved design and method of manufacture from a French made waterpot (or can as they are now called) and designed a can with perfect balance. Whether full, half full or empty the can could be used without undue strain to the operator. To this day, the original design has not been altered in any major way.

As watering was all done by hand in those days, there was a clear need for a good range of watering cans and the new Haws models found a ready market. Sales were buoyant both to the large glasshouse nurseries being established around London and the large provincial cities, and to professional gardeners on the landed estates flourishing throughout Great Britain.

When John Haws’ descendant Arthur Haws took over the management of the business in the early 1900s he faced stiff competition from companies imitating the Haws design. To meet it he spent a good deal of time perfecting the design of the roses, both oval and round, such that they were suitable for watering newly sown seeds, delicate seedlings and small plants. This feature of Haws cans also remains as important now as it was then.

Today, Haws’ comprehensive range of watering cans continues to offer new innovations (pot watering attachments and parking points for roses are recent examples) as well as utilising the many excellent design features of the original models.