Pruning shears, also called secateurs, garden shears or hand pruners, are a type of scissors for using on plants. It is a garden tool that is used for cutting off the branches of trees and plant stems. Pruner can be used with just one hand. It has a sharp cutting blade and a spring that will open it back up after you make your cut.
Pruning is one of the most common tasks we have in the garden, so it makes sense to have a full understanding of the different types of pruning shears out there. Garden shears should be part of your essential garden tools. From bypass pruner to anvil pruner, we will talk about the different types, shapes, and technologies that these garden tools use to help you get the job done in the garden.
There are two types of pruners: bypass and anvil. Let’s see what’s the different between these two secateurs!
Bypass pruners are assembled with two blades that go pass each other like scissors when you make a cut. The scissors picture on the left are known as bypass types.
By the way, there is no difference between pruners and secateurs, both of them are used for the same tool. Depending on where you live, you will use one or the other term to identify the garden tool.
Bypass pruners are suitable for pruning or cutting live branches and stems. Its upper blade is sharpened and lower blade (which we also called hook) is unsharpened and it is going to go very easily through live stems and it is not going to do any damage to the plant.
Anvil pruners are pruners that have one side with a blade and the other side has an anvil, or lower jaw of the pruner. Unlike traditional pruning shears, these pruners do not deliver a smooth cut but crush the branch between its sides instead. Compared to other pruners such as bypass ones, anvils only have one single cutting blade. Think of a knife and cutting board or flat surface.
Anvil pruners tend to crush the material that is being cut and are used where cleanliness of cut is not as important as removal. Therefore, anvil pruners are used for cutting dry, woody and smaller parts of plants with less effort or hand strength than bypass pruners.
