Suwada Garden Secateurs S-19

Let's face it, you have to be pretty serious about your secateurs to even contemplate buying ones like these. I blame Monty Don. In a programme about gardens in Japan I saw recently he made some remark about beautiful Japanese secateurs and I was hooked. I had to find out what he meant, and what was available. After a few minutes searching on Amazon (and rather longer agonising about the price) I ordered these. I have a number of small Japanese acers (not bonsai exactly, but in containers), and these sounded just the job for tidying them up and snipping out small stems and crossing branches. Well I am delighted with these - they are not only the most elegant, but the most precise secateurs I have owned. Being picky they are not the most comfortable pair (opening slightly wider in my hand than I would like) and I really miss having a wrist strap to stop one dropping them over the neighbour's wall when pruning the ivy (I have improvised one). So my trusty Gardenia secateurs will still see some use, but the Suwadas are beautifully sharp, look gorgeous, and they are an absolute pleasure to use. Their greatest property, I find, is to make one really think about where and how one cuts - a sort of Zen gardening perhaps, even when cutting ivy! They are the first pair of secateurs where I've ever felt the need to clean them with metal polish after every use in order to keep the blades pristine (did you realise how much sap stains?), and to keep them in their box inside the house rather than with the others in the greenhouse. I wouldn't use them for cutting big stems - my Gardenias can do that without my having to worry about their blades - but if you fancy some fine secateurs for precision work these are a joy to use. Oh, and the Acers are looking pretty good!

Delivered much quicker than promised. These secateurs are of an amazing quality. Can't wait to get out into the garden.

Brilliant hand tool what more can I say *****