How to Select Garden Shears

Gardeners, you must face the facts: No single cutting tool can do all of the trimming jobs in your garden. Here are some guidelines for selecting the right garden shears for the job.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Anvil Pruners
• Bypass Pruners
• Flower Shears
• Grass Shears
• Hedge Shears
• Lopping Shears
• Electric Hedge Shears

1. Use hedge shears to shape and lightly trim hedges. Select hedge shears that are lightweight and have serrated blades, which cut through heavy material better than straight blades. When selecting a hedge shear, make sure it has the rubber "shock absorber" between the blades.

2. Use bypass pruners to do most of your garden pruning. These work like scissors do: The blade passes by a flat base and the cut is made as the blade passes through.

3. Use anvil pruners to do nonexacting work such as thinning shrubs. Anvil pruners pinch the wood between the blade and a base, making the cut like a knife does.

4. Use flower shears for cutting flowers. They have an anvil blade that is pointed at both ends, making it easy to get between tight stems.

5. Use lopping shears (or "loppers") for cutting heavier wood. Look for lopping shears that are light in weight and that have long handles; plastic-handled lopping shears are now available. Loppers should have a bypass cutting head so that you can make pruning cuts close to the trunk or stem, and longer handles are nice if you are working on hedges or tall shrubs.

6. Use grass shears for trimming around sprinklers, fence posts or tree trunks. These make quick work of grasses but are inappropriate for cutting anything larger.

Tips & Warnings

• Lopping shears also come with a shorter handle for pruning things, such as roses, that are too thick for handheld shears to cut easily.

• Clippers and shears can be kept sharp with a fine file or sharpening stone or by cutting through sandpaper.

• Use electric shears to finish large jobs quickly.