The Informant: This Pair of Fancy Scissors Keeps My Plants Alive Longer

Our editors independently select the products we recommend. We may earn a commission on items bought through our links.

SPY agents, trained to be discerning and skeptical, are tasked with identifying high value targets for shrewd shoppers. Products curated by The Informant are the best of the best: beautifully imagined and thoughtfully made products that become instantly indispensable.

Today's Top Deals

Walk While You Work: This SPY-Tested Walking Pad Treadmill is Over $200 Off

Save $160 On This Amazon 4K Fire TV

JBL Earbuds Are $50 Off Right Now

Just because there isn’t a sprawling garden of wildflowers outside the back door — or, just because the home doesn’t have a back door — doesn’t mean that plants aren’t a part of life. Some people are “Plant Dads” and some are just trying to trim the bodega roses the way they saw on an HGTV show that one time to squeeze an extra few days out of them. For all of these things — and about a dozen other tough-to-cut things — I’ve routinely turned not to the junk drawer scissors in my apartment, but to my secateurs.

Secateurs are, to put it most simply, fancy scissors. Unlike the Fiskers ones best remembered from second grade art classes, secateurs are often made by hand under the watchful eye of skilled craftsmen and women. The ones I use are Higurashi GR secateurs, by Niwaki.

Normal scissors come together on a straight line to slice through an object. That’s fine for something thin that doesn’t give resistance like a piece of paper or a flat object, but when it comes to cutting through curves, it can be a bit harder. Living in New York, I’m bringing fresh flowers back to the apartment and keep them in a vase, as opposed to tending to my garden outside. When I’m trimming flowers for the vase height, though, having a perfectly clean break helps keep the stems intact and healthy.

With normal scissors, the blades slip off the rounded edges of a stem. With these, the springs at the center of the handle create a hook-like vice that follows the rounded edge as it starts to slip, continuing to slice through it. (If someone is reading this thinking that they cut flower stems perfectly fine with normal scissors, I don’t want to call them an outright liar, so I’ll just say that they’re clearly someone who hasn’t used secateurs before.)

There are plenty of round things that need cutting on a daily basis that secateurs can help with. The straws at Dunkin’ Donuts are too long for the large iced coffee cups. Snip. Wrapping presents up with yarn is a fun flourish. Snip. Maybe you’re actually trying to start that windowsill garden and need to prune a branch back. Snip.

All in all, there are plenty of uses for secateurs, but for me, non are more satisfying than keeping admittedly cheap flowers healthy a little longer because I’ve sliced through the stalk (rather than mangled it by trying to cut stems with an object that has the sharpness of a wooden spoon).

Price: $64.00

Buy Now

The simple secateurs help slice through flowers to keep them alive longer.

More Top Deals from SPY

iRobot Vacuums Are Up To 35% Off - Save Nearly $100 On The Roomba 694

Calphalon's Kitchen Knife Set is $40 Off

Feeling Stressed? This Portable Back Massager Is 23% Off

Best of SPY

10 College Dorm Room Closet Organization Hacks To Make the Most of Your Limited Space

These Mattress Protectors Will Add Years to Your Bed's Life, Trust Us

Click here to read the full article.