A serious gardener would know that there are a number of creative ways you can do in the garden to make it into the perfect natural haven. The challenge would be in maintaining the state of your garden and the tools you need to sustain that beauty. There are countless of tools for the garden but to think about maintenance, you’ll surely value gardening shears.
Gardening shears, pruning scissors, pruning shears or garden clippers are invaluable to anyone who handles plants, be it the small kind or even big ones like trees. With this tool, maintaining your garden into the look and feel that you want will be a breeze. But more than cutting things in the garden, hand pruners help you get more creative with your plants.
The art and science of pruning
Contrary to popular belief, to prune is to not just to cut. Cutting means doing away with any unnecessary or unwanted element as you do when you trim branches of trees that have become too long that it becomes a hazard. It’s natural to cut away unwanted especially nature elements that can posed a problem later on.
But with pruning, it’s all about life. The intention is to remove elements that hinder the growth or thriving potential of a plant. To do this entails selective removal of certain parts of a plant like buds, branches, or even roots. In some cases, shaping is also done with pruning, where you control the direction of the growth of plants. Another instance is to prepare a plant for transplanting with the intent to increase harvest yield.
To do these pruning activities, one must remember that there are specific ways to prune with the right kind of pruning shears.
Hand pruning shears blade types
Before you start with cutting, try to have a plan for your garden. Just cutting away won’t do your landscape any good and might even do damage than improving your garden. For every cut, you need the perfect blade.
- Stainless steel. Stainless steel blades have a high corrosion resistance because of the chromium component that is not present in carbon steel.
- Carbon steel. Carbon steel-makes are more malleable but are brittle. It becomes brittle because of too much carbon but also hardens it.
So, depending on what your priority is and what you usually do with your pruning shears, both have its own pros and cons.
3 designs of gardening shears
Who knew pruning can be so intricate! Garden pruning isn’t like simply cutting through a branch but a way for gardeners to make a clean cut enabling growth in plants. There are three designs of garden shears.
- Anvil Pruners. An anvil pruner has one blade one on side and the other side acts like a board. The blade side pushes or cuts through a material onto the board side. These are mostly used for cutting up dead wood or parts in a plant that we intend to remove. This is the garden shears heavy duty kind where you want to remove unwanted plant element.
- Bypass Pruning Shears. Bypass pruning shears are like scissors where there are two blades that pass each other to do the cutting. These pruning shears are used for intricate cutting, where the objective of the gardener is to slice through cleanly without affecting any damage at all to the rest of the branch. This is used on small plants with small soft tissue.
- Parrot-beak Pruners. Parrot-beak pruners have two concave blades. The two blades trap the stem in between to make a clean cut. These are most especially used for narrow stems. This is the pruning shears small type that is used for flowers.
Depending on the plant and what you need to do, choose a gardening shear that will do the work effectively to save you time and heartache (where you accidentally kill the plant instead of letting it regrow!).
5 uses of gardening shears
Garden pruning shears are more than cutters. They’re beautification tools that will enhance your plants’ attractiveness and overall aesthetic of your area. To maximize the use of your hand pruning shears, there are a number of ways you can do it.
- Create a bonsai area in your garden
Bonsai trees are perfect for indoor or outdoor décor. One bonsai tree is more than enough when you are planning to put it indoors. Outside, it has competition with the rest of the plants, especially if your garden is unpruned. So, another way to make your bonsai stand out is to create a bonsai area. With bonsai pruning shears or simply find a pruning shears small from your favorite tool shop, turn a tree into a bonsai wouldn’t be so hard and will be faster than you thought. Pruning shears for bonsai are made especially for snipping instead of the crude cutting. A bonsai tree area is a perfect space for solitude where you would not be bothered with overgrown branches and falling leaves.
- Cut trimmings into smaller sizes for easier disposal and vermiculture
One of the benefits of gardening is knowing that you get to contribute to the welfare of the environment. One way is to enable easy disposal of organic matter such as plant trimmings. When you clean up your garden, make it easier for garbage collectors to gather trimmings by cutting them further into smaller sizes using a parrot-beak pruner. Also, you can choose from your garden shears set for your favorite tool for cutting. This way, you can rake the trimmings direct into sacks or garbage disposal bags without having to hire somebody to do it for you.
Another way is to use trimmings to feed worms for vermiculture. Vermiculture is a recycling process using worms to decompose organic food waste and turning the waste into nutrient-rich matter to sustain plant and enrich the soil. Worms for vermicast eat leaves, yard trimmings and grass clippings. If you are cutting thicker branches, garden shears clippers can also trim faster.
- Learn the basics of arboriculture
It isn’t everyday that you get the chance to do a lot more than just gardening in your backyard and planting flowers. There’s more to discover with nature such as arboriculture. Arboriculture involves cultivation and management and studying of trees, shrubs, vines and other woody plants. Studying these types of plants mean learning about their growth and response to cultural practices to their environment.
To aid you, use an anvil garden shears heavy duty to do the work especially with thick vines. You can choose to prune certain woody plants to maintain it for landscaping in your own garden or a community park. Pruning is a cultural technique. By pruning, learn about the right ways to prune certain kinds of plants to enhance its amenity purposes, whether at home, or a public place.
- Try another hobby, try Ikebana
Ikebana is the term used in Japan for flower arrangement. It’s an activity that is totally its own art discipline. Ikebana is thought to be a dignified accomplishment, where Japanese generals dabble in it to calm their minds to help them make clearer decisions in battle.
More than just having flower gardens, plant with the purpose of sharing the beauty that is in your garden as well. If this is the case, you will need a garden shears set so you have one for every purpose when designing your own flower arrangement. Ikebana uses different natural elements, so you can also use other natural component other than the flower. In this way, you have use of every type of garden shears pruning effectively and precisely.
- Not just gardening, but farming as well
Farms can be beautiful too, with thriving fruits and vegetables along with flowers in your garden. This time, landowners and homeowners opt to plant fruits and vegetables in the garden instead of the usual flowers for additional aesthetics of their homes.
Farming a small piece of land works well especially for first time growers and is as beneficial as a flower garden. For one, you are growing your own food, so it saves you time and money. In addition, growing your own food has never been more satisfying than now because of sustainability issues.
Both a bypass pruning scissor and the garden scissors heavy duty type will work well for multiple activities even in a small farm and garden type farm. Use the bypass pruning scissor for vegetables while the heavy duty pruner will work on some fruits on trees. This way you are ensuring healthy regrowth of plant food instead of just picking and cutting.
Gardening your stress away
Using hand pruners for gardening poses many benefits that we can take advantage of in this fast-paced world. It is much like enjoying a long, luxurious bath after a hard day’s work, gardening has been proven by scientists to make a calming effect to those who take it as a serious hobby. It is not surprising, the visual effect of flowers and of a piece of land teeming with life seems to invigorate even the most tired of individuals.
Other than visual effects, the activity of getting “down and dirty”, meaning working with soil and all of nature seems to signal our brain to refresh our minds and works wonders for our mental health. In addition, pruning is an art in itself, ensuring that plants are given the chance to regrow and bloom once again makes it a worthwhile endeavor.
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