What are the best secateurs for gardening

For most UK gardens the best secateurs are a sharp bypass pair that fits your hand properly, and very little else matters as much as those two things. Bypass blades pass each other like scissors and cut living stems cleanly. Anvil blades crush a stem against a flat plate, which is right for dead wood and wrong for anything green.

Get those two decisions right and a pair of secateurs will last years. Get the fit wrong and you will feel it in your wrist by the second border.

At a glance

• Living stems, flowers, shrubs: bypass secateurs
• Dead, dry or woody growth: anvil secateurs
• Comfort: non slip or rubberised grips, and a size matched to your hand
• Smaller hands or fine work: micro or mini secateurs
• Upkeep: clean after use, sharpen a few times a season, store dry

• Bypass or anvil: which do you need?
• What makes a pair comfortable to use
• Size, fit, and finding them again
• The best secateurs we stock at Norman & Vera
• Keeping the blades sharp
• Frequently asked questions

Bypass or anvil: which do you need?

Secateurs come in two cutting styles, and they are not interchangeable.

Bypass secateurs, sometimes called parrot billed, are what most gardeners want. Two blades pass by each other like scissors, so the cut is clean and precise, and the stem is not bruised on the way through. The curve of the blade also holds the stem steady while you position it, which is why the shape has barely changed in a century.

Anvil secateurs work more like a knife coming down on a chopping board. A single straight blade closes onto a flat metal plate. That gives you power on tough, dry material without much effort, at the cost of precision.

What bypass secateurs are best for

• Green, living stems
• Flowers and shrubs
• Delicate pruning where the cut needs to heal cleanly

The trade off is that they can labour on dead wood, and the blades want sharpening more often.

What anvil secateurs are best for

• Dead wood
• Thick, stubborn branches
• Heavy clearing and winter tidying

The trade off is crushing. Bring an anvil pair to a living stem and you leave a bruised, ragged cut that heals slowly. Keep a bypass pair for anything still growing.

What makes a pair comfortable to use

A good pair should feel like part of your hand. That sounds like marketing until you have spent two hours deadheading with the wrong ones.

Look for a non slip coating or a textured surface on the handles. Damp hands and muddy handles are the normal condition of gardening, not the exception, and a coated grip is what stops the tool turning as you squeeze. Rubberised handles do the same job and absorb some of the shock of each cut, which takes strain off the wrist and fingers. That matters most on repetitive work, and it matters a great deal to anyone gardening with arthritis or joint pain.

Weight is the other half of it. A heavy pair feels reassuring in the shop and tiring in the third hour.

Size, fit, and finding them again

Secateurs are not one size. If your hands are on the smaller side, a standard pair forces your fingers to stretch on every cut, and you will grip harder to compensate. Micro or mini secateurs solve that, and they are the better tool anyway for herbs, deadheading and close work among crowded planting.

There is also the matter of putting them down. Plain green or grey handles disappear into a border within seconds. Brightly patterned handles are far easier to spot on a lawn at dusk, which is a more practical argument than it sounds, and the patterned ranges in our Garden Tools collection earn their place partly for that reason.

The best secateurs we stock at Norman & Vera

Three pairs cover most of what a UK garden asks for, all from Burgon & Ball, whose tools we carry because they last rather than because they photograph well.

The Bypass Secateurs with Spare Blade are the sensible everyday pair. Bypass action for live growth, and a second blade in the box, so when the edge eventually nicks or dulls you swap it rather than replacing the tool.

The Red Collectors Bypass Secateurs take a high carbon steel blade through stems up to 2.5cm, with PVC coated handles and an easy lock mechanism for storage. They arrive in a candy striped gift box, which is why they leave the shop as presents about as often as they leave as tools.

The Olive Green Collectors Micro Secateurs are the small hands and fine work option. Same high carbon steel, same lock, in a compact body built for herbs, deadheading and pruning in tight planting.

All three sit in our Gardening Gifts range too, boxed and ready to give.

Keeping the blades sharp

A blunt pair does more damage than no pruning at all. Dragging blades tear rather than cut, and a torn stem is slower to heal and more open to disease. You also squeeze harder to force the cut, which is where slips happen.

• Wipe sap and soil off the blades after use
• Dry them before they go away
• Touch up the edge with a sharpener a few times through the season, not once a year
• Use the lock, and store them somewhere dry

A pocket sharpener like the Burgon & Ball Blade Edge Restorer lives in a tool bag and takes seconds to use, which is the only reason it actually gets used. The RHS guide to basic pruning is worth reading alongside this if you are working out when to cut as well as what to cut with.

Shop Garden Tools

Frequently asked questions

What are the best secateurs for UK gardens?

For the vast majority of UK gardens, a sharp bypass pair with coated handles will handle everything you meet through the year. UK gardening tends to mean a lot of soft growth, roses, shrubs and herbaceous perennials, and bypass blades cut all of that cleanly. Choose the size by your hand rather than by the plants, since a pair you can hold comfortably will always outperform a larger pair you have to stretch around. Keep an anvil pair as a second tool only if you regularly clear dead or woody growth.

Should I buy bypass or anvil secateurs?

Buy bypass first. It is the more versatile of the two and the one that suits living stems, which is most of what pruning involves. Anvil secateurs earn their place as a second pair if you are cutting back a lot of dead or dried woody material, where their crushing action gives you power without much effort. Using an anvil pair on green growth is the common mistake. It bruises the stem, leaves a ragged edge and slows healing, so keep the two jobs separate.

What size secateurs do I need for small hands?

Look for micro or mini secateurs rather than a standard pair. On a full size tool, smaller hands have to open wider on every cut and grip harder to keep control, and that is what leaves your hand aching after an afternoon. A compact pair closes within a comfortable span, so you can work for longer with less effort. They are also the better tool for herbs, deadheading and pruning between closely planted perennials, where a full size blade is simply too big to get in.

How often should secateurs be sharpened?

A few times through the growing season for most gardeners, rather than once a year. The honest test is the cut itself. If the blades are dragging, tearing at the stem or needing more squeeze than they used to, the edge has gone. A pocket sharpener restores it in seconds, which is why keeping one in the tool bag works better than planning a proper sharpening session you never get round to. Clean the sap off first so you are not grinding grit into the steel.

Can secateurs cut thick branches?

Only up to a point, and forcing them is how blades get sprung. Most quality secateurs are rated to around 2cm to 2.5cm of stem, and that rating assumes a sharp blade and green wood. Anything thicker wants loppers or a pruning saw. Twisting the handles to work through a branch that is too big will damage the pivot and the blade alignment, and a pair that no longer closes true will never cut cleanly again, however often you sharpen it.