6 Best Felco Pruners For Professional Gardeners That Last a Lifetime
Discover the top 6 Felco pruners for professionals. These durable, Swiss-made tools are a lifetime investment, offering superior cutting and ergonomics.
You’ve been there: halfway through pruning the orchard, your cheap pruners snap at the handle, leaving a half-finished job and a trip to the hardware store. Investing in a quality tool isn’t about spending more money; it’s about buying your time back and getting the job done right. For serious gardeners and hobby farmers, that investment almost always leads to one name: Felco.
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Why Felco Pruners Are the Professional’s Choice
When you buy a Felco, you’re not just buying a pruner. You’re buying the last pruner you’ll likely ever need. The core of their value lies in two things: exceptional materials and a fully modular design. The high-carbon, hardened steel blades hold a razor edge far longer than cheap alternatives, meaning cleaner cuts and healthier plants.
This isn’t a disposable tool. Every single component, from the blade and anvil to the spring and locking nut, is replaceable. Drop your pruners and bend the blade? You can order a new one. After ten years, the spring finally gives out? A new one costs a few dollars. This philosophy turns a simple tool into a lifetime companion in the garden.
Contrast this with the typical big-box store pruners. They work fine for a season or two, but the steel is soft, the handles are flimsy plastic, and once a part breaks, the entire tool is destined for the landfill. A Felco is an upfront investment that pays for itself by eliminating the need for repeated replacements.
The Felco 2: The Original, Indestructible Classic
The Felco 2 is the standard by which all other pruners are judged. It’s a simple, rugged, and incredibly reliable bypass pruner. If you could only have one tool for pruning, this would be it. The design is straightforward, with no complex ergonomics—just forged aluminum handles and a hardened steel blade that does its job flawlessly.
This is the workhorse of the lineup. It’s the pruner you can toss in your truck, leave out in the rain by accident, clean up, and put right back to work. Its simplicity is its greatest strength. There are no frills, just a perfectly balanced tool that makes clean, precise cuts on branches up to an inch in diameter.
The tradeoff for this classic design is a lack of modern ergonomics. The handles are straight, which can lead to wrist fatigue during long pruning sessions. But for general farm and garden tasks, from trimming fruit trees to cutting back raspberry canes, the Felco 2 is an icon for a reason. It is the definition of a tool that just works.
Felco 8: The Ergonomic Choice for All-Day Comfort
The Felco 8 is the direct evolution of the classic Felco 2, designed with the user’s comfort in mind. The most significant change is the angled cutting head. This small adjustment allows your hand and wrist to remain in a more natural, neutral position while you cut, dramatically reducing strain.
Think about pruning an entire row of apple trees. With a straight-headed pruner, your wrist is constantly bent at an awkward angle. The Felco 8 aligns the tool with the natural strength of your arm, making each cut more efficient and less tiring. The handles are also shaped to fit the hand better, providing a more secure and comfortable grip.
This is the pruner for anyone who spends more than an hour at a time on pruning tasks. While the Felco 2 is a durable generalist, the Felco 8 is a specialist in user comfort. It delivers the same cutting power and durability you expect from Felco, but in a package that will leave your hands and wrists feeling much better at the end of the day.
Felco 7: Rotating Handle to Reduce Hand Fatigue
If the Felco 8 is an ergonomic upgrade, the Felco 7 is the next level of comfort, specifically designed to minimize repetitive strain injuries. Its defining feature is a lower handle that rotates on its axis as you squeeze. This might feel strange at first, but the benefit is immense.
Instead of your fingers rubbing and creating friction against a static handle, the rotating grip rolls with your natural closing motion. This simple mechanism reduces the effort required for each cut by up to 30%. It also eliminates blisters and pressure points that can develop during marathon pruning sessions, like thinning grapevines or managing a large berry patch.
The Felco 7 is a premium tool for a specific need. If you suffer from arthritis, carpal tunnel, or simply find your hands ache after a long day of work, this pruner is a game-changer. It requires a slight adjustment in how you use it, but the payoff in reduced fatigue and hand pain is well worth it for those who need it most.
Felco 9: The Ultimate Pruner for Left-Handed Users
For too long, left-handed gardeners have had to make do with right-handed tools. The Felco 9 is the definitive answer to this problem. It is not an "ambidextrous" pruner; it is a true left-handed tool, a perfect mirror image of the ergonomic Felco 8.
Why does this matter? On a bypass pruner, the cutting blade slices past a stationary anvil blade. For a clean cut, the cutting blade should be on the side of the remaining plant or branch. A right-handed person using a right-handed tool naturally achieves this, but a left-handed person using the same tool has their view of the cut obscured and often ends up crushing the stem.
The Felco 9 reverses the blade and anvil, puts the thumb lock in the correct position for a left-handed user, and ensures every cut is as clean and effortless as it should be. If you are left-handed, do not compromise with a right-handed tool. The Felco 9 is the correct pruner for you, period.
Felco 6: A Compact, Powerful Tool for Small Hands
Bigger isn’t always better. The Felco 6 is a compact, lightweight pruner designed for users with smaller hands. It’s also an excellent choice for tasks that require more precision and control than raw power.
Don’t mistake its smaller size for weakness. The Felco 6 packs the same high-quality steel blade and durable construction as its larger siblings. It’s perfect for detailed work like deadheading roses, trimming floral arrangements, or pruning delicate vines where a larger, heavier tool would feel clumsy and oversized.
This model is the ideal choice for gardeners who find standard pruners to be a bit of a stretch to operate comfortably. A poor-fitting tool leads to weak cuts and hand fatigue. The Felco 6 ensures a secure grip and full control, allowing for powerful, clean cuts without the strain of handling a tool that’s too large.
Felco 31: The Anvil Pruner for Tough, Dead Wood
Most Felco models are bypass pruners, which act like scissors to make clean cuts on living wood. The Felco 31, however, is an anvil pruner. This means a single straight blade closes down onto a flat anvil, much like a knife on a cutting board.
This design is purpose-built for one job: cutting hard, dead, or dry wood. Using a bypass pruner on this type of material can twist or damage the fine cutting edge of the blade. The anvil pruner’s crushing action is far more effective and won’t harm the tool. It’s the pruner you grab when clearing out old, dead branches from a lilac bush or cutting up woody material for the compost pile.
It’s crucial to understand the tradeoff. Anvil pruners crush, they don’t slice. This makes them a poor choice for pruning live stems, as the crushing action can damage the plant tissue and invite disease. The Felco 31 isn’t a replacement for your bypass pruner; it’s a specialized tool that excels at a job that would ruin a lesser one.
Maintaining Your Felco for a Lifetime of Service
Owning a Felco is a commitment, and a little maintenance is all that’s required to make it last a lifetime. The process is simple and can be broken down into three key steps: cleaning, sharpening, and lubricating.
After each use, especially when cutting sappy wood, wipe the blades clean with a cloth and some rubbing alcohol or a specialized resin solvent. This prevents sap from building up, which can cause the blades to stick and make cutting difficult. A clean tool is an efficient tool.
Periodically, the blade will need sharpening. Felco sells a dedicated sharpening stone, but any fine-grit diamond file will work. A few passes along the beveled edge of the cutting blade is all it takes to restore a factory-sharp edge. Finally, add a drop of light machine oil to the pivot bolt to keep the action smooth and prevent rust. This simple routine, performed a few times a season, is the secret to a pruner that feels brand new, year after year.
Sharpen knives and tools with this dual-sided whetstone (400/1000 grit). Made with premium silicon carbide, it requires only water for lubrication and works on a variety of blades.
Choosing the right Felco is about matching the tool to your hand and your most common tasks. It’s an investment not just in a piece of steel, but in healthier plants, less physical strain, and the satisfaction of using a tool that’s built to be passed down. Buy the right one once, take care of it, and it will take care of you for decades to come.
