5 European Tool Brands Worth Considering For Your Garden

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Whether you're a new gardener or an expert, one of the most important parts of keeping a healthy, thriving outdoor space is knowing the most essential gardening tools you won't want to skip. Fortunately, there are several well-known options to choose from that are made by brands all around the world, including Europe. In fact, if you're not actively researching the history behind your favorite tools, you may be surprised to learn that many popular gardening tool brands are European — from Fiskars in Finland to WOLF-Garten in Germany. 

Although the purpose of similar tools often does vary, the location of origin can play a large role in certain design specifics of tools, such as handle silhouette and materials. As a result, for those looking to upgrade their current tool options to capture a more European style, there are several options available in America that are worth considering. We selected the following five based on their popularity, presence, reputation, and unique approach to gardening tools.

Fiskars is one of the oldest companies in Finland, since it first arose all the way back in 1649, when Peter Thorwöste was granted permission to establish a blacksmith shop in Fiskars. This European brand offers a wide variety of garden tools, from power tools to axes to supplies for indoor gardens, giving buyers looking to be exclusive one brand to shop from no matter the size of their garden.

When it comes to tools, Fiskars is surprisingly best-known for its scissor options. While standard scissors may not be the first garden tool to come to mind, there are various ways to employ them in the garden. They are great for light pruning, opening seed packages, trimming the twine used to support climbing plants, and they can even help with edging your driveway and landscaping in a pinch.

Fiskars offers other types of garden tools as well. There's the Fiskars weeder, which offers a budget-friendly way to remove weeds from gravel driveways, as well as options such as their pruning clippers. These are designed specifically for garden cutting, so while you may use their iconic orange-handle scissors for related tasks, choosing one of their pruners can allow you to cut stems and still-green growth without damaging the plant or your tools.

Although it may not have a history as long as Fiskars, Felco (stylized FELCO) is another European tool brand that offers a variety of options to build up your gardening arsenal. The brand was founded by Félix Flisch in Switzerland in 1945, with a focus on pruning tools. It is best known for its pruning shears, the FELCO 2, which were launched in 1948 and are still available for purchase today.

With a 4.8-star rating from over 14,000 reviews on Amazon, the FELCO 2 is a notoriously popular right-handed pruner weighing just over half a pound, with a cutting diameter up to approximately 1 inch. At this size, it can handle many of the common pruning and trimming tasks in your yard. This includes trimming small branches on shrubs and young trees. Of course, if you need a heavy-duty tool for larger branches, choosing a lopper or saw, both of which Felco also offers, is often a better choice to keep your tool safe from accidental damage.

Although there are various manual tools from this brand that are worth considering for your garden, if you're looking to cut down on the elbow grease needed to maintain your outdoor space, you may instead wish to shop for power tools. For example, the FELCO 2e is an electric option compared to the brand's manual tools, with a similar cutting diameter to that of the FELCO 2. However, the brand also offers other power pruners, trimmers, individual batteries and chargers, and extension poles for targeting difficult tasks, like when you're pruning trees.

An English brand, Burgon & Ball began making agricultural and sheep shears in 1730 in Sheffield. In 1922, the company began to produce a greater number of garden tools, including garden shears. In 2012, its tools were endorsed by the Royal Horticultural Society. You may recognize the Royal Horticultural Society by its acronym, the RHS. It is an over two hundred-year-old gardening organization located within the United Kingdom and known for its gardens, reports, and advice, among other resources.

For a company that started with shears, those are one of the first places you may want to shop if you're considering this European tool brand for your garden. At the time of writing, Burgon & Ball has 27 pairs of hand shears and snips available on their website. Many of these are specialty tools, such as specific orchid snips, Japanese pruning scissors, or various topiary shears. However, you can also find more general handheld tools like garden and flower scissors.

Alongside their shears and scissors, Burgon & Ball also offers various other garden tools to help stock your kit. There are hand tools for working up close and personal with your soil, such as hand towels, hand forks, or weeders, alongside longer tools that can be used while standing. This includes your typical rakes and hoes alongside more niche finds such as an apple picker or brushes and brooms for cleaning the landscape around your garden.

Based in North Holland in the Netherlands, Sneeboer was established in 1913 by Arie Sneeboer. By the mid-20th century, the company produced and sold a variety of stainless steel gardening tools, many of which are still available for sale today. Around the turn of the century, Sneeboer scaled up its production and started exhibiting its tools at various garden events, including the Chelsea Flower Show in 2001 organized by the RHS. At the time of writing, the brand has over two hundred garden tools and essentials on its website. While this includes your basic garden gear such as shovels, aerators, cultivators, hoes, hand tools, and long-handled tools, Sneeboer also offers planters and raised beds. The brand also makes storage options, such as their hanging garden tool storage to keep tools elevated and reduce the likelihood of wood rot on the handles.

Like Burgon & Ball, this European brand also offers a variety of highly-rated niche tools that can serve specific functions in your garden. One example is their flat stone scratcher, which can be used to remove weeds from between pavement in your garden. Meanwhile, Sneeboer's standard stone scratcher serves a similar purpose, helping remove weeds from hard-to-reach areas while also being multipurpose thanks to its ability to double as an aerator between plants in your garden.

WOLF-Garten is a German garden tool brand founded in Betzdorf, Germany in 1922. While it may be one of the younger brands on this list, it does have one area where it stands out: its registered trademarked multi-change system. It consists of separate handles that buyers can connect to interchangeable heads, allowing them to tailor their gardening tool arsenal to their specific needs. This unique innovation aims to minimize the number of separate tools in the garden, saving space and providing a more budget-friendly shopping experience.

WOLF-Garten also has a kit for you if you're building your gardening tool set from scratch. It includes a 59-inch aluminum handle and six interchangeable tool heads ranging from a hoe to a rake to a weeder, and a pair of pruners. These tool heads can also be used alongside other WOLF-Garten handles purchased separately, and the handle is likewise compatible with other WOLF-Garten tools not included in the kit. 

While this kit is marketed for vegetable gardens, the brand offers other kits as well. Many of these are for general exterior tasks, such as a window care kit, but they also have more garden-oriented options, such as a tree care and maintenance kit with a telescoping handle, loppers, saw, and pruners. WOLF-Garten also has an array of hand tools. Many come with their own handles, but they can be removed and the tool itself attached to longer handles if needed. One of the brand's biggest selling points, however, is peace of mind: All of its multi-change tools purchased after 2018 carry an impressive 35-year guarantee.