10 Easy Pieces: Floral Scissors

The gardener’s toolbox is incomplete without a pair of floral scissors, which serve a different function from your standard pruners.

Floral scissors or herb snips (however you prefer to call them) work well when deadheading fragile flowers, snipping herbs from the garden, and trimming soft stems when arranging flowers. Here are ten that we like:

Above: The Set of 3 Herb Scissors from Father Rabbit in New Zealand is $31 NZD for the set.

Above: Burgon and Ball’s Professional Topiary Shears are £23.95 each. For US-buyers, Burgon and Ball’s Garden Shears are available at Kaufmann Mercantile for $52.95.

Above: The Authentic Japanese Gardening Scissors are made of iron and meant for trimming trees: the short one (L) is meant for thick branches, the medium size is meant for general use, and the slim shaped scissors (R) are meant for thinner branches; available seasonally, $150 from Tortoise General Store in Los Angeles.

Above: For trimming bonsai (or other house plants), a pair of stainless steel Ryuga Ohkubo Hasami Shears is $77.95 from Wee Tree Farm.

Above: The Garden Herb Snips are made of tempered steel blades and made especially for harvesting herbs. Designed by Burgon and Ball in Sheffield, England, the snips are available at Amazon for $29.15 each.

Above: A pair of Floral Scissors from Kiya have small sharp blades ideal for making small cuts on delicate plants; $150 from Cooper Hewitt.

Above: Brookfarm General Store’s Scissors are made by one of the oldest existing companies in the world, a Chinese scissor company in business since 1663. Made with sharp blades and steel handles, the scissors are $12 each.

Above: The Chrome Thread Snips are usually used in the home for sewing, but many gardeners find them useful for deadheading fragile flowers and soft stemmed plants; $15 each from The Gardening Tutor.

Above: To snip herbs or cut stems when you’re arranging flowers, Tajika Flower Shears (made by a Japanese company that has been producing handmade tools for four generations) are useful for other household chores too; $58.85 from Analogue Life.

 

Above: A pair of Mini Herb Snips with steel blades, available in either green or red, is $14.95 from Williams-Sonoma.

If ikebana is your thing, take a look at our recent post: 10 Easy Pieces: Ikebana Vases; and if you’re interested in snipping herbs from your garden to use later, see of all the herb drying racks in our archive.

N.B.: This is an update of a post originally published April 2, 2013.