The Spruce
As gardeners, we work too hard to maintain the health and happiness of our veggies, shrubs, and flowers to ruin them with dull, ineffective pruning shears. To combat this, we tested over a dozen garden pruners in our home gardens for two years to write the end-all, be-all list of the greatest options.
Some are unsurprising selections from well-known brands like Fiskars and Felco, while others were unsuspecting gems with great value. Our favorites spanned different types of pruners: a bypass, a must-have for gardeners that work like scissors, an anvil to cut through firmer stems, and a ratchet with more hand support.
Before investing in a pair of garden pruners, decide on which type suits your needs. We actually find it helpful to have one of each in our kit for deadheading, pruning, and trimming all season long.
Our Top Picks
Best Overall
Felco F-2 One-Hand Pruning Shear
Professional quality
Adjustable blades
Effective for many garden tasks
Comfortable handles
Might be too big for very small hands
While testing, the Felco F-2 easily earned its place as an essential tool for any gardener. We found them effective for a multitude of garden tasks, for example, pruning stems, vines, and branches (up to 1 inch in diameter) with ease.
We put this bypass pruner to the test in a garden in Oregon, where hydrangeas, laurel hedges, various shrubs, and flowers ran rampant. Much to our delight, the pruner snipped and snapped through all the greenery and shrubbery without any difficulty or leaving ragged edges on the plants.
What Our Tester Said
They definitely feel sturdy and durable—these are the pick if you're looking to invest in shears once and never need to again. —Mia Ingui
The F-2's steel blade is durable, and it also has a lightweight aluminum handle that is extremely comfortable, thanks to red, rubbery covers—we felt no hand pain, even after a lengthy session in the garden.
It is 8.5 inches long, making it ideal for gardeners with medium to large hands (if your hands are small, then the Felco F6 is your best option). While this is the most expensive pruner on our list, every part of this Swiss-made tool can be replaced, so if you care for your pruner properly, it will last you for decades.
Type: Bypass | Maximum Cut Capacity: 1 in. thick | Locking Mechanism: Yes | Weight: 0.53 lbs. | Length: 8.5 in.
The Felco 2 One-Hand Pruning Shear earned our top spot for sturdiness, versatility, and quality. Credit: The Spruce This bypass pruner worked great on everything from hydrangeas to vines during our testing. Credit: The Spruce We felt no hand pain or cramping while using this all over our garden. Credit: The Spruce
Best Value
Gonicc Titanium Bypass Pruning Shears
Comfortable cutting action
Sharp titanium blades
Suitable for most hands
Spring can break after heavy use
Doesn't work great on dead wood
A quality hand pruner can be expensive, but these pruning shears from Gonicc are no slouch in the garden yet come at a very reasonable price. We used this tool to prune ivy and other plants growing over our fence and found it very comfortable to use and sharp enough to cut through branches easily.
A great perk of this pruner is the sap groove, which helps prevent sticky plant fluids from clogging the pruner. We didn't even need to clean the tool after a gardening session. After using it for a summer, we think this pruner is best used to cut through live stems and greenery rather than dead wood.
What Our Tester Said
I think this is a good all-purpose tool that is budget-friendly and good for left or right-handers. It's very sharp and it seems like it would hold up well. —Jenica Currie
We also want to note that the latching locking mechanism is easy to use, and standard to most pruners, but we didn't find it as intuitive as our best heavy-duty option, which has a latch at the top of the tool. But overall, we think this is a great tool for many pruning jobs and is a great value for its sharp blades and comfortable grip.
Type: Bypass | Maximum Cut Capacity: .75 in. thick | Locking Mechanism: Yes | Weight: 0.4 lbs. | Length: 8 in.
The Gonicc Pruning Shears mirror shears that are twice the price with easy cutting and high-quality blades. Credit: The Spruce The gold blade made it easy to spot within a shrub to keep track of what we pruned or didn't. Credit: The Spruce
Best for Beginner Gardeners
EZ-Kut Ratchet Pruner
Ratcheting reduces force required
Comfortable handles
1.5-inch cutting capacity
Green color can be hard to spot against the grass
While testing this all-metal pruner, we found it sturdy, sharp, comfortable to grip, and easy to use, making it our favorite recommendation for beginner gardeners.
This is ideal for those who may need extra help tackling tougher branches, and we think it's also useful for budding gardeners building their toolkit since it is so easy to use and handles many different types of pruning jobs.
What Our Tester Said
I would absolutely recommend these pruners to a friend if they needed new ones—I actually am going to gift these to my gardening grandfather to help his older hands. —Mia Ingui
We found that the handles provided better leverage than others we tested, thanks to the design. This pruner is made of aluminum with a comfortable grip coating, and at around 8 inches, it fits most hands. With a maximum cutting capacity of 1.5 inches, it's great for pruning dead branches and woody materials.
On the downside, the green color can make it tough to spot if it is set down in the grass. It is available in pink as well, if you tend to misplace your tools or want a pop of color in your toolbox.
Type: Anvil | Maximum Cut Capacity: 1.5 in. thick | Locking Mechanism: Yes | Weight: 0.4 lbs. | Length: 8.26 in.
The EZ-Cut Ratchet Pruner makes trimming and pruning easy on the hands. Credit: The Spruce Because the bottom blade stays stationary, this is great for thicker branches. Credit: The Spruce
Best Heavy-Duty
Fiskars PowerGear 2 Pruner
Ergonomic handles
Require less effort to cut through branches
Easy to close and lock
Designed for right-handed use only
The Fiskars PowerGear 2 Pruner is our favorite option for thick, stubborn branches that need a heavy-duty pruner. It has a patented mechanism that reduces the pressure as you cut, meaning less stress and fatigue to your hand, and a cleaner cut through green stems, vines, twigs, and small branches.
The handles are uniquely designed to roll slightly with your fingers' movement to help reduce hand strain. It took us just a minute or two to get used to the rolling motion since it's different from a traditional pruner. But after the first use, we loved how quickly we were able to prune back ivy along our fence, even for thicker branches.
The titanium coating on the steel blades helps ward off sticky sap and rust, as well as provides a smooth cut. The strong blades stay sharp for a long time, so resharpening them will be a thankfully infrequent task, although when you do need to sharpen this pruner, the blades open wide enough to make it an easy job.
We also loved how easy it is to close and lock the blades for storage. It has a latch at the top of the pruner that we found very intuitive and easy to push back and forth.
Type: Bypass | Maximum Cut Capacity: .75 in. thick | Locking Mechanism: Yes | Weight: 0.55 lbs. | Length: 11.5 in.
While testing the Fiskars PowerGear 2 Pruner, we thought it was easy to use on a variety of hand sizes. Credit: The Spruce The cushioned handles are designed to reduce strain and allow you to prune longer. Credit: The Spruce
Best for Roses
ARS Heavy Duty Pruner
Professional quality
Extremely sharp, durable blades
Designed for reduced hand fatigue
Exceptionally clean cuts
Lock can be tricky
Known for their extremely high-quality garden tools, ARS is a Japanese brand that's been around for over a century. This pruner snips through rose stems and canes as easily as cutting through butter, creating clean, perfect cuts without any ragged edges or tears. Use it to snip through rose stems and canes, vines, twigs, small branches, and flower stems up to .75-inch thick.
We love the impressive sharpness of the steel blades. They are slightly offset to reduce hand fatigue and effort required for clamping the pruner closed, so even if your hands aren't the strongest, you can still easily keep your rosebushes looking their best, whether it's end-of-season pruning or in-season deadheading to encourage more blooms.
What Our Tester Said
From the moment I unpacked these pruners, I was impressed with the feel and quality of them. I think anyone at any level of gardening skill would benefit from these.—Daniela Galvez
The handles of this bypass pruner are aluminum with a rubber coating for better grip and improved comfort. We only needed to squeeze gently to release the lock, but occasionally, the lock can stick a bit. At 8 inches in length, this pruner is good for gardeners with average-size hands.
Type: Bypass | Maximum Cut Capacity: .75 in. thick | Locking Mechanism: Yes | Weight: 0.47 lbs. | Length: 8 in.
The ARS Signature Heavy Duty Pruner is tough as nails and can easily prune thorny rose bushes or other woody stems. Credit: The Spruce We love the comfortable rubber handle and spring mechanism that made these super easy to use. Credit: The Spruce
Easiest to Use
The Gardener's Friend Pruning Shears
Soft rubber handgrips
Suitable for right- and left-handers
Included cleaning sponge
Blades aren't very sharp
This ratcheting hand pruner from The Gardener's Friend is designed to be very easy to use even if you struggle with hand weakness. During testing, we found the ratcheting design extremely gently on the hands and the easiest option to cut through small branches up to an inch in diameter.
This is an anvil-style pruner, which requires less pressure to provide more cutting force and is especially good for cutting through woody material, although, of course, you can use this pruner to clip through stems and vines, as well.
While the blades aren't quite as sharp as some others on our list, they can be replaced if needed. This pruner also comes with a small cleaning sponge to help keep the blades in great shape.
Type: Anvil | Maximum Cut Capacity: 1 in. thick | Locking Mechanism: Yes | Weight: 0.5 lbs. | Length: 8 in.
The Gardener's Friend Pruning Shears makes tedious pruning take only a few minutes. Credit: The Spruce This pruner is extremely comfortable to hold for a long period of time. Credit: The Spruce
Best Adjustable
Corona ComfortGEL Bypass Pruner
Eight settings for small through large hands
Coated to prevent sap buildup
Effective and clean cuts through most plant materials
FlexDIAL can be tricky to use
Our favorite adjustable pruner is this option by Corona. The standout feature of this pruner is the FlexDIAL, which allows you to adjust how far the pruner can open—this is perfect for someone who needs to prune everything from vegetables to small trees in their garden.
We tested this pruner in our home garden on a wide variety of plants, including citrus trees, palm fronds, vines, and shrubs. The steel blades cut easily and cleanly through just about everything we tested—the palm fronds were too wide for a clean cut, but the pruner still managed to muscle through them.
What also stood out while testing was the very comfortable grip. The ergonomic handles were very easy and comfortable to squeeze, even for our somewhat painful hands. The blades are coated to prevent the sticky buildup of sap and other plant fluids, which was especially liked while pruning ficus.
One little hiccup we noted while testing was the FlexDIAL's stickiness. We found that it tended to stick when being adjusted. However, we were still able to work around that by squeezing the pruner slightly while turning the dial to the desired setting.
Type: Bypass | Maximum Cut Capacity: .75 in. thick | Locking Mechanism: Yes | Weight: 0.6 lbs. | Length: 8 in.
The Corona FlexDIAL Bypass Pruner has unique adjustable blades that custom-fit different stem sizes. Credit: The Spruce With a flick of the dial, you can adjust how widespread the blades are and tackle a bunch of different plants. Credit: The Spruce
Best for Smaller Hands
Felco F-6 Classic Pruning Shears
Designed for small-to-medium hands
All components are replaceable
Professional quality
Not a very wide cutting capacity
The Felco 6 is the pint-sized version of our best overall pick, the Felco F-2, designed for a smaller hand. Like the F-2, this pruner is a great addition to your gardening toolbox, especially if you are an avid gardener and will use it often. While testing, we found this pruner to be very durable and sharp, allowing us to prune a bush in our yard very quickly.
Like the F-2, this pruner has a sap groove to help ward off the accumulation of sticky grunge on the blades, a wire-cutting notch, and a nut and bolt that are adjustable to set the blades at just the right angle for your use.
The cutting capacity of the F-6 is 0.8 inches, which is a bit less than the F-2, but you can just as easily snip through green stems, vines, twigs, and branches that aren't too hard or thick on your garden shrubs. You can also replace all parts of this pruner, which means that if you take good care of it, it will last through decades of gardening use.
Type: Bypass | Maximum Cut Capacity: 0.8 in. thick | Locking Mechanism: Yes | Weight: 0.46 lbs. | Length: 7.68 in.
The Felco F-6 Pruning Shears fit smaller hands perfectly and worked on everything from shrubs to branches. Credit: The Spruce These blades are sharp and effective and made trimming bushes an absolute breeze. Credit: The Spruce
Final Verdict
There’s a reason the Felco F-2, our best overall pick, is the pruning shear of choice for so many professional gardeners and arborists. This iconic garden tool is made to last with durable construction, adjustable blades, a comfortable handle, and all-replaceable parts. If you want less expensive garden shears, the Gonicc Bypass Pruning Shears, our best value pick, is for you. We found it comfortable to use and great at tackling any pruning task.
How We Tested the Pruning Shears
We researched a variety of top-rated pruners and tested eight different options, including anvil and bypass, in our gardens across the country. We used these as part of our normal yard and garden maintenance, which included pruning small shrubs, rose bushes, vines, and other plants over several weeks.
Our experience ranges from beginners to more seasoned gardeners, right and left-handed, so we could get a full breadth of expertise to test out these pruners.
What to Look for in a Pruning Shear
The Spruce
The Right Pruner for Your Plant
Different pruners are right for different plants and garden tasks, from shaping shrubs to pruning vegetables. These are some of the most common types you'll spot:
- Bypass pruners, like our best overall pick, the Felco 2, are the most common type. They are designed for pruning live plants, including rose bushes, small shrubs, and tree branches.
- Anvil pruners have one stationary blade and one blade that slices straight down onto a groove in the stationary blade. They come in handy for cutting dead branches and stems, like the Gonicc Professional Anvil Pruning Shears, our best value pick.
- Garden snips are the smallest type of pruner. They're more like small, sharp scissors used for cutting thin stems, deadheading flowers, or pruning bonsai and other delicate greenery.
The Quality and Material of the Blade
Look out for what the blade is made of on a good set of gardening shears. Most standard pruners have steel blades, while the highest quality has carbon steel—some brands even give blades a nonstick coating to keep sap and fluids from ruining them.
Our best overall pick, the Felco F-2 shears, has hardened steel blades that are guaranteed to last years.
How Comfortably You Can Hold Them
Pruning can be tiring work, especially on your hands and wrists. To offset that, many brands add features to make the job a bit for comfortable, like springs and ratcheting mechanisms, like our best for beginners pick, the EZ-Kut Ratchet Pruner.
The handle is another place where comfort is key—the best pruning shears have aluminum handles covered in rubber for better grip and less hand fatigue. A bit of rubbery padding adds further comfort and helps keep the tool from slipping and sliding.
Standout Features
Rotating Handles
A few pruners, including the Fiskars PowerGear 2 Pruner, our best heavy-duty pick, have rotating or rolling handles, which means that the pruner is designed to move with your fingers’ natural motions as you work. This makes the pruners easier for those with hand weakness.
However, some gardeners find the rolling motion awkward or take a while to get used to the feeling of the tool slightly rotating within their grasp as they open and close their fingers. If you aren't a fan of the rotating handle, opt for something more stationary, like our best value pick, the Gonicc Bypass Pruning Shears.
Left-Handed Use
Many pruners can be comfortably used in either hand. But often, pruners are specifically designed for use in the right hand only.
Because of this, if you are a lefty, you’ll need to be sure that your pruners are designed for you. Our best overall brand, Felco, makes another version of their pruners, the F-9 shears, specifically designed for left-handed use.
Power Pruners
If you are looking for a pruner that requires little effort from your hands, an electric pruner is a great option. It runs on a rechargeable battery and does the hard work of closing and opening the pruners for you, thus supplying all the force required to nip through stems, twigs, small branches, and other plant materials.
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How do you know when to prune your plants?
Plants that flower during the summer months should be pruned during the winter or early spring before new growth begins. Flower buds develop on the new year’s growth, so it is important not to prune new growth before flowering.
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Can you sharpen pruner blades?
Not only can you sharpen your pruner’s blades, but you should do so regularly enough to maintain a sharp, even edge. Dull pruner blades create ragged cuts, which can lead to damage or disease in the plant’s tissues.
One More Thing
We included pruning shears on our list that are perfect for gardening tasks like pruning tomatoes, trimming dead branches off of shrubs, and deadheading flowers. However, according to Brian Feldman, the senior director of technical operations at True Green, "if you are cutting large branches, then lopping shears, not pruners, is the right choice.”
Why Trust The Spruce?
This article was written by Mia Ingui, an editor at The Spruce and a gardener of over 10 years. She has purchased quite a few pruning shears over the years and stays loyal to her Felco F-2s (though she tested the EZ Kut Heavy Duty Pruning Shears for this story and wound up loving them!)
To choose the best pruners for this article, she was a part of the at-home test where she snipped and sliced away at her overgrown tomato plants and dead herb stems. She evaluated the pruning shears' testing insights for durability, effectiveness at creating clean cuts, blade type, comfort, ease of use, and overall value.
Our Experts:
- Brian Feldman, senior director of technical operations at TruGreen.