5 Best Pruning Shears For an Impressive Garden in 2024 [Reviewed & Rated]

Growing a well-crafted and healthy-looking garden needs regular care such as watering, fertilizing, and pruning.

To get effortless pruning, you need to get the best pruning shears available in the market. The pruners look like household scissors, but these are designed to cut and trim through thick plant stems and branches.

In this article, we learn more about pruning and then our recommended pruning shears for the everyday gardener. 

5 Best Pruning Shears in the Market

Best Pruning Shears – Our Top 5 Picks

Many people had asked me what the best hand pruners on the market are? Here is a list of 5 best pruning shears you can buy depending on your pruning needs.

Why Do You Need Pruning

Pruning involves selectively cutting parts of plants or bushes. You can prune not only shoots and branches of the plant but also roots, flowers, leaves, fruits, and seed pods.

Pruning may seem destructive for the plants, but pruning stimulates the growth of stronger and healthier foliage. When plants are pruned, the cut area is covered by plant repair tissues to seal the area. The sealing of the area prevents any decay or spreading of the disease to other parts of the plant. 

Some of the common benefits of pruning are: 

Improved Plant Health

Pruning the diseased, damaged, or dead parts of the plant enhances the overall health of the plant. As this contains the spreading of insects or disease on to the other plant parts. 

Moreover, pruning improves the air circulation inside the plant and allows the sunlight to reach every part of it. This improves the overall appearance and health of the plant.

Plant Size

Pruning helps to maintain the size of the plant relative to other plants in your garden. Keeping all plants in the same proportion makes the garden look more appealing. 

No Outside Interference

Pruning overextended branches prevent them from interfering with utility lines or pathways. This is essential for safety reasons and other bylaws requirements.

Prevent Injury or Property Damage

Cutting overhanging or dead branches reduces the tripping hazard or other safety issues. When you strategically prune the bigger plants, it reduces the wind resistance to the plant, which reduces the likelihood of a bigger tree falling on the property.

Increase Fruiting And Flowering

When you correctly prune flower buds and stems, it encourages flowering and stimulates plant growth. Selective pruning can help to produce more abundant fruits or flowers than the unpruned plant.

Improved Appearance

Mature plants and shrubs get unorganized growth of branches which may become unattractive. By adequately pruning, you can choose the shape of the plant or bush, which enhances the look of the plants and garden.

Read More: 5 Best Bud Trimming Scissors: For Precise Pruning of Your Garden Plants

Why Do You Need Pruning Shears

As we know for any lush green garden, the pruning of overgrown plants is essential. Pruning not only helps with the looks of the garden but also helps with the steady growth of the plants.

The use of the best quality and the correct type of pruning shear helps you with the clear-cutting of plants and shrubs. This improves the airflow between the plants and provides room for branches to grow more evenly.

The pruning of damaged or dry branches makes the plant get healthier and stronger while making it more resistant to insects and diseases. To make pruning more productive, you’ve to make a clear cut with no stubs or leftover branch fibers.

That being said, pruning is a bit physically intensive task and may appear intimidating for any gardener. But by using the right type of pruning shear, you can get the pruning done with less effort and obtain a cleaner cut.

So, whether you are pruning your plant or shrub for better growth or trying to achieve a specific style of the plant, there are different types of pruning shears available in the market.

There will be more information about using the right type of pruning shears later in this article.

Types of Pruning Shears

There are 4 basic types of pruning shears:

Hand Shears

The hand shears are the most commonly used to prune mainly small plants or bush branches up to 3/4 inches in diameter. These are lightweight and small in size. It comes in two different cutting blade types.

The cutting blade of hand shears can be either a scissor-type or anvil-type. The scissor-type edges are also known as bypass pruners. In this, two small but curved shape knife overlaps each other when pressed to cut the object.

This type of blade motion provides a cleaner cut. This is helpful when you need to prune live plants rather than dead branches or trees.

The anvil-type blade design has an upper blade pass through the flat lower plate blade. The pruner looks like the anvil where the plant gets cut by a sharp top edge while the bottom side gets crushed by the downward pressure.

As imagined, this type of blade design does not provide a clean cut. But it’s beneficial when used to cut thick woods or dead branches which is hard to cut with scissor-type of steel blades. 

Pruning Snips

The pruning snip shears have a pair of razor-sharp but tipped scissors. The blades can be either straight or slightly curved. This helps with delicate pruning works such as cutting flowers or giving sharp and narrow shapes to the plant or bush. 

But these are not the best choice if you need to cut thick or dry plant materials. However, for any soft and green plants, it works best. For pruning tough and harder branches, you can pick ratchet pruning shears.

The ratchet pruning shears are ergonomically designed with a mechanism that allows you to latch the pruning blade. This means you don’t have to cut the part in one stroke. 

The latch allows the extra power delivery of the cutting force without you again applying the pressure. This continuous and sustained cutting pressure enables you to cut even thick branches with ease.

Here’s a brief video explaining how to ratchet pruning shear works.

Lopping Shears

For cutting a more extended plant branch or bushes, you need a lopping shear that can cut up to 30 to 40 inches in height. The long and sturdy construction of the pruner makes it easy to reach at the top of the tall bushes without needing a ladder.

Most of the lopping shears are designed to have a foldable handle which makes it easy to store and choose the desired length. The long handle length also provides more leverage to cut through thick and hard branches without putting excessive pressure on your arm and wrist.

Fiskars lopping shear is the most common brand with which many people may be familiar. 

Hedge Shears

Hedge shears are used to prune bushes and plant leaves. It’s an economical option to get a quick job done. The hedge shears contain sharp, hardened stainless steel blades with arm-length size metal handles.

It’s perfect for pruning small and thin stemmed bushes and hedges to maintain the desired shape. The hedge shears are kind of scissors with long handles which you operate with both hands. You can use it to cut multiple plant branches at once.

The sharp blades overlap with each other, which gives a straight line clear cut. Most hedge shears have cutting blades over 19 cm in length and come with comfort grip to hold them for a long time.

Best Pruning Shears Selection Tips: What to look for?

There are so many different types of pruners are available in the market. It’s good to have choices, but having multiple-choice can make it challenging to find the right tool for your need.

Here is a couple of things you need to check when you are looking to buy the best pruning shears. 

Pruner Type

You should choose the pruner based on the job you’ve in your hand. For pruning, small and average height plant or bushes, the bypass pruner may work best. But if you want to prune taller plants or shrubs, then you need to choose a pruner that can reach top branches.

Here is a pruner type you can use based on the plants:

Tree: You can typically use any pruner depending on the part of the branch you are planning to trim. Most likely, you will be cutting an extended branch or overhanging leaves, and for that, the hand shears may work best.

For cutting the dead or thicker branch, consider using an anvil pruner.

Taller Bushes or branches: For taller bushes and branches especially around the garden boundary, you need a higher cutting length to maintain privacy inside. For that, you may choose Lopping shears which allow you to cut and shape the bushes at a far greater height.

Small to medium length shrubs: Use hedge shears to cut and design the shape of the shrub and boundary wall plants. The hedge shears provide a cleaner cut while maintaining better control over the design of the shrub. 

Blade Quality

The quality of the blade determines the life of the shear and the quality of the cut. The best pruning shear blades are made from hardened or high carbon steel materials. These blades maintain their sharpness without getting rust on the edges.

Size And Weight

The size and weight are an essential consideration as you don’t want something either too small or too large, which may cause you uncomfortable handling it for a longer duration.

Check the size and weight of the pruning shear and then decide whether you may be comfortable holding it and using it for an extended period. 

Safety Lock

Pruners contain sharp blades, and if they can cut plant branches, then they can easily slice your fingers if you’re not careful. To prevent accidents, you should check if the pruner has a safety lock. When not in use, always make a habit of locking it in a closed position. 

Keeping it closed with a safety latch when not in use prevents any injuries but also protects the sharp tip of the blade from getting damaged. 

Cutting Diameter

The cutting diameter of the hand pruner is the maximum thickness of the plant branch you can comfortably cut. Get some ideas about the plants you’ve in your garden. 

Look at the thickness of the branch and check if the pruner has a long enough cutting diameter to handle the branch thickness. 

Handle Material And Design

The design of the handle and its cover determines how comfortable the pruning shears will be in use. The soft and cushioned grip makes it easier on the wrist and fingers. This allows you to use the shear for a longer duration.

If you’ve health issues such as carpal tunnel or arthritis, then pay more attention to handling grip material and the design, so it’s comfortable to use. 

How to Sharpen Pruning Shears

Sharpening a pruning shear is easier than you may have thought. It only takes less than 10 to 15 minutes to sharpen your pruner, and you can do it as part of regular maintenance of your yard tools.

Personally, for sharpening hand pruner and other landscaping tools, I use Corona Sharpening tools. It’s very portable due to its small size and comes with a protective casing that easily fits in the tool bag.

Follow these steps to sharpen the pruning shears blade.

Step 1: Clean the garden shear blade if you haven’t done it already. Unclean and greasy blade surface makes it hard to sharpen the blade. Use warm soapy water if there is mud or dirt on the pruner and use a scouring pad to rub off the dirt. 

If there is rust on the pruner, use vinegar to dissolve the rust and then use a stainless steel scouring pad to remove the rust. Once the pruner is clean, use a dry cloth to remove any excess water or dirt. 

Step 2. Angle the hand pruner blade around 20 to 30 degrees and start stroking it with a sharpening tool inside out. Apply gentle pressure and keep stroking it evenly across the blade surface. Keep checking your progress as it doesn’t take long to sharpen the pruner blades. 

Most of the moderately used pruner blades will sharpen after passing the sharpening tool 15 to 25 times. The more well-used and dull blades may need over 50 to 60 passes.

Once you’ve sharpened the blade, reduce the pressure to smoothen the blade coarseness and remove any small rough surface at the edge of the blade. 

Step 3. Use a dry cloth to remove any dust or scraped part from the blade and apply lubricant. You don’t need to use excess oil as a small and thin layer of grease should be sufficient to maintain your pruning shear properly. 

How to Care For Pruning Shears

Like any other tool, you need to take some primary care of your bypass pruners if you want it to last longer. Pruners are easy to maintain, and some necessary cleaning of the pruner especially the sap groove will be sufficient to keep it in good shape.

But there is one more important reason to keep your pruner clean. And that is to prevent the spread of disease among plants. By properly cleaning your pruner between each use will prevent the spread of this disease to other plants.

As preventive maintenance, always clean any dirt or debris from the shear once you finish the job. If there is mud on the pruner, then wash it entirely and apply a thin oil layer on it to prevent it from rusting.

If for some reason you get rust after storing it for a while then dip pruner in a vinegar jar and leave it there for 24 hours.

In these 24 hours, the vinegar will act on the rust and pull it away. Use a dry cloth to rub off the rust or use a dry scrub pad to rub off any leftover stubborn rust.

You can then apply Corrosion protection oil such as 3 in one Multi-purpose oil which lubricates, removes rust, and makes a protective, preventive layer on the tool.

There you have it, the best pruning shears for all your gardening needs. If you look at the types of pruners and features, I discussed above, it should be easy to choose the right kind of pruner for your garden.

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