Letter of Recommendation: Electric Hedge Trimmers

Pruning shrubs and topiary is an exhausting business—especially if it requires being perched on top of a ladder or spending an entire day to complete the work. Large hedge-trimmers are simply far too heavy and unwieldy, and—apologies to the purists—traditional topiary shears, too slow for the impatient gardeners among us.

Which is why electric shrub shears are a game-changer for me. I’d first seen the Stihl HSA 26 battery-powered pruners last year but held off buying them until I visited designer Sheila Jack in her Wiltshire garden, where the neat power tool is an essential for trimming her fast-growing Lonicera nitilda domes that need to be clipped every few weeks.

The Stihl shears come with two attachments: a 20cm shrub cutter and a smaller 12cm “grass” cutter. It’s become my go-to tool, gliding through and tidying multiple overgrown hebes, a large topiarized pittosporum, and the many boxwood balls in my garden. It’s lightweight enough to work with all day—although a charged battery will get you about 110 minutes of clipping. (To recharge the battery will take about an hour; having a spare battery would avoid this issue.)

Crucially the HSA 26 is nimble enough and with a strong enough blade action to make clean and precise cuts. Like any bladed power tool, it needs to be used with care. But it’s extremely easy and intuitive to use, with simple blade changes and a rubberized grip for comfort. Stihl claims the shears can cope with branches up to 8mm thick (if you want a tool for chunkier branches, the brand’s cordless pruner—the GTA 26—is a mini chainsaw that is equally lightweight).

As we head into winter, I’m anticipating that the shears are going to be equally transformative when it comes to the big winter deadheading, especially for ornamental grasses which can be time-consuming to cut back. Like the very best tools, this one has made my gardening life a pleasure instead of a pain.

See also:

• Letter of Recommendation: An Ode to the ‘One-Night-Only’ Cereus Bloom
• Letter of Recommendation: The Garden Pouch I Plan to Use As a Purse
• Letter of Recommendation: Citizen Pruners and Street Tree Stewardship