Snip, snip, cut off dead wood: "Kassensturz" tests garden shears
Do you have green fingers and always keep your plants in good shape? Then you know that there's no way around secateurs. But if you think that the first one you get is good enough, then you've really cut yourself off.
Emptying a full wheelbarrow, lugging heavy pots around, mucking out the chicken coop - these are the jobs in the garden that I'm most likely to be able and willing to do. You won't find green fingers on my hands, you're much more likely to find them on my wife's. So it's hardly surprising that I used to know as much about secateurs as aphids know about differential equations.
I now know a bit more thanks to the garden shears test conducted by the SRF consumer magazine "Kassensturz". For example, which models perform well. Or that there are bypass garden shears ... please what?
On Tester's cutting edge
Ten bypass garden shears were tested by "Kassensturz", twice over. In the practical test, five landscape gardeners worked with the shears for several hours and assessed them according to the following criteria:
- Cutting
- Handling
- Effort required
- Risk of injury
- Robustness
The VPA Prüf- und Zertifizierungs GmbH in Remscheid, Germany, also scrutinised the scissors. The experts there carried out standardised tests in the laboratory:
- Load test
- Cutting performance
- Maximum cutting performance
- Drop test
- Corrosion test
All "good" scissors come in threes
With an overall score of 5.3, a pair of secateurs that you can only find at Hornbach came out on top - in the truest sense of the word. So it's true: there's always something to do - even for our range. The test winner is praised by the professionals for its "super good cut", although it is not ideal for soft wood.
Followed closely by the pruning shears from Felco (score 5.2), the most expensive in the test at a price of almost 60 francs. In the practical test, it even came out ahead of the test winner, but it had to make concessions in the laboratory, where, for example, it did not fulfil the specified maximum cutting capacity of 25 millimetres. If only the marketing department at Felco hadn't taken its mouth too full.
You don't seem to mind, because the Felco model sells like hotcakes in our shop: it is currently the best-selling garden shears in the shop.
The "Kassensturz" test podium of "good" garden shears is completed by Krafter (4.8).
Thanks, it's "enough"
Okay is the name of Landi's own brand, and this is also the test result for its secateurs. It received a score of 4.7, just like the Stihl product tested. That's "sufficient", or in other words: solid midfield.
Too little cutting edge for better marks
Half of the ten secateurs tested failed the test. At 3.9, the models from Jardin Royal (Jumbo) and Fiskars were just "unsatisfactory". The latter pair of shears is not robust enough, according to "Kassensturz". After the practical test, it was no longer possible to cut cleanly with them.
Depending on the material, you need a lot of strength with the Miogarden secateurs (3.6). At least that's what the experts say. Migros itself replies that this model has performed well in other tests and is the best seller. In our country, the Miogarden scissors are in 5th place in terms of sales.
Literally the worst performers in the "Kassensturz" test are the models from Gardena and Wolf Garten. Neither scored higher than 3.5 overall, which is primarily due to unsatisfactory performance in the practical test.
Which secateurs do you use to prune your plants? Do you have a hot tip? Write it in the comments!
Header image: SRF / Kassensturz
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I'm a full-blooded dad and husband, part-time nerd and chicken farmer, cat tamer and animal lover. I would like to know everything and yet I know nothing. I know even less, but I learn something new every day. What I am good at is dealing with words, spoken and written. And I get to prove that here.
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