A 17 cm straight-blade pruner, built for precise cuts on tender stems and small branches: harvesting fruiting vegetables, trimming woody herbs, cleaning up plants at season's end.

Straight blades, and that's a real distinction. An anvil pruner crushes the stem against a plate; that's sturdy for dead wood, but on a living stem it bruises the tissue on both sides of the cut. Straight blades that cross slice clean, like scissors, and a clean cut heals fast instead of offering an open wound to fungi. For anything alive, that's what you want.

Stainless steel asks less upkeep than carbon steel: it won't rust if you forget it on the garden table after a rain, which happens to everyone. And the safety lock isn't a detail: a pruner that opens in an apron pocket or at the bottom of a basket is the most common way to cut yourself in the garden.

The hygiene step that matters: wipe the blades with alcohol when moving from one plant to another, especially in tomatoes, sweet peppers and hot peppers. Nightshade viruses travel very well on a blade, and a single pruning session can contaminate a whole row starting from a plant that didn't look sick yet.

• Measures 17 cm (6.7") long.
• Made of stainless steel. Safety lock.
• Straight blades that slice clean rather than crush: better healing.
• Very precise and easy to use.
• For: harvesting, trimming woody herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary), end-of-season cleanup.