Credit:
Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
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Credit:
Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
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Felco pruners have a solid reputation for a good reason: They cut cleanly through every plant in your garden, from flower stems to branches. Read More
The Fiskars Softgrip bypass pruning shears are great all-around pruners for twigs, cans, and branches—at an affordable price. Read More
Sharp blades, comfortable handles, and an easy-open, easy-close latch make these pruners perfect for all-around yard work. Read More
The Okatsune #103 Bypass Pruners are elegant, precision instruments for trimming your garden to your exacting standards. Read More
These pruners are good, sharp tools for short rounds of everyday pruning. The sharp top blade has a rounded tip, making it less likely to break. Read More
If you have plants with stems thicker than a toothpick, sooner or later you’ll need a pair of pruning shears. A good pair of steel blades lets you cut dead branches off shrubs and trees, remove rose canes that are rubbing and damaging other canes, and deadhead perennials to spur new blooms—all without tearing or splintering your plants. A great pair of pruning shears also feels comfortable in your hands, and is easy to sharpen and repair.
We tested 10 of the best pruning shears on the market for quality, price, sharpness, leverage, and sturdiness. Our best overall pick is the Felco F-2 068780 Classic Manual Hand Pruner (available at Amazon for $62.46) , a sharp, effective garden tool with enough replacement parts available to keep your pruning shears in top shape for decades. Felco pruners also come in a variety of sizes, so if you have big hands or tiny fingers, you can find a pair of Felcos that feels natural.
Our best value pick is the Fiskars Softgrip Bypass Pruner (available at Amazon), which are surprisingly sharp and powerful for the price. They did a better job of cutting thick branches than any other pruners in our sample.
While slightly more expensive than others we tested, Felco pruning shears more than proved their worth every penny.
Fiskars pruning shears performed well and provided an excellent value.
Smooth
Sharp
Replacement parts available
Harder to use for smaller hands
Not rust-resistant
Easy to hold
Round tip makes it less prone to damage
Replacement blades available
Not very smooth to open and close
Cuts through twigs and sticks well
Replacement parts available
Imprecise
Difficult to shut the latch
Comfortable handles
Latch is easy to lock
Strong recoil
Difficult to use for smaller hands
Testing included cutting through branches, wooden dowels, and even plastic mulch bags.
Meg Muckenhoupt is an environmental and travel writer. Her book Boston Gardens and Green Spaces (Union Park Press, 2010) is a Boston Globe local bestseller. Meg was awarded a certificate in field botany by the New England Wild Flower Society, and has earned degrees from Harvard and Brown University.
We researched 78 different models of pruning shears and tested 10those that rated highly for quality, price, or both. We put these 10them through dozens of different tests of performance, durability, and ease of use—cutting scallions, rose bushes, raspberry canes, pine and cottonwood branches, hardwood dowels, a T-shirt, a plastic mulch bag, and plastic cable ties. Then we dropped them on a concrete garage floor to see how they held up.
All of our pruning shears went through an initial round of “Can it cut?” tests for sharpness and power. We trimmed quarter-inch diameter currant bush twigs, one-third-inch raspberry canes, and half-inch cottonwood and pine branches, and sliced through a plain white T-shirt and a heavy plastic mulch bag.
Pruners that performed well sliced through all of these materials effectively without crushing the material, leaving dangling fibers or ragged edges, or requiring heavy two-handed pressure. FiveSeveral models were clearly superior to the rest for this first round of testing: ARS, Felco, Fiskars, Grüntek, and Haus & Garten.
They moved on to the second round when we cut hardwood dowels measuring one-quarter inch, one-half inch, and one inch in diameter. We also used them to cut rose petals and plastic cable ties. None of the pruning shears were able to successfully cut through the one-inch hardwood dowel (although the Fiskars eventually made it through after repeated attempts), and all of them needed multiple cuts and severe pressure to get through the half-inch dowel.
Finally, each set of pruners was dropped from waist height onto a concrete garage floor to simulate everyday consumer clumsiness.
Our final round rated pruning shears on aspects that weren’t related to performance. We strongly considered whether the blades were damaged during testing, how comfortable the shears felt to use, whether they came in different sizes, whether they have replacement parts available, and how easy it was to use them overall.
Pruning shears are essentially big, heavy scissors with a spring in the middle that makes them re-open after each cut. Although most pruning shears are sharp enough for snipping garden herbs, they’re primarily used for thicker, harder stems, twigs, and branches that your kitchen scissors can’t cut.
They’re useful for pruning roses, raspberries, “suckers” on tomato plants, and small branches on trees and shrubs. If you need to cut off branches that are thicker than your thumb, consider buying long-handled loppers, which will give you more leverage for powerful cuts.
Hand-held pruners come in two main versions: bypass and anvil. Bypass pruning shears have two blades that “pass” each other, like a pair of scissors. Anvil pruning shears have a cutting blade that strikes a flat “anvil” blade.
Anvil pruners are great for cutting hard, dead wood, but they tend to mash and tear greener, more elastic stems. We stuck to bypass pruners because they’re more flexible for a variety of garden tasks, and can cut your living plants without damaging them.
Pruning shears have three main components: blades, springs, and handles. A lot of manufacturers boast that their pruner blades are made out of “carbon steel,” stainless steel, or some other metal that’s supposed to be especially hard—or that special blade coatings prevent rust.
High-quality, hardened steel, like SK-5 steel, and other metals are a good idea for pruner blades, because they will stay sharp longer than regular metal, but sooner or later, every pair of pruning shears needs sharpening. That sharpening will remove the coating from the blade’s cutting edge, which is the part of the pruners you want to keep from rusting to keep clean cutting.
Instead of worrying about optimizing the ultimate metal for pruner blades, you and your plants will be happier if you learn how to clean and sharpen pruners. Every time you use your pruners, wipe off debris and grime with a rag, paying special attention to the sap groove that helps blades from sticking, and wipe the blades with a little bit of WD-40 or vegetable oil to keep moisture off.
When you notice the pruners getting dull, sharpen them with a coarse diamond file, then a fine diamond file before oiling them. The University of New Hampshire offers step-by-step directions and video instructions for disassembling, cleaning, and sharpening Felco pruners.
Top-of-the-line brands like Felco and ARS also offer replacement parts if you’ve sharpened your pruners one too many times, or if the spring flies off—something that consumers frequently report in reviews of cheaper pruners.
Pruner handles matter because handles that are too big or too small for your hand will be unwieldy and uncomfortable. We looked for pruners that come in a variety of sizes when possible so that you can find the perfect fit for your grip. Many are ergonomically designed with comfort in mind.
Less-expensive pruners tend to feature plastic handles that will inevitably crack or break over the years; premium brands like Felco, ARS, and Okatsune tend to offer coated metal and aluminum handles, which should be more durable. (The ARS HP-120EU 8-Inch Hand Pruner we tested has a plastic handle, but it also costs $20 less than their premium pruner, the ARS HP-VS7XZ.)
Meg Muckenhoupt
Contributor
Meg Muckenhoupt is an environmental and travel writer. Her book Boston Gardens and Green Spaces (Union Park Press, 2010) is a Boston Globe Local Bestseller. Meg was awarded a certificate in Field Botany by the New England Wild Flower Society and earned degrees from Harvard and Brown University.
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