The Nurseryman is a pair of traditional spring garden scissors, made for pruning, trimming and garden work. Patterns like this were once used in nurseries, greenhouses and gardens for cutting green stems. Short blades and long handles gave control during repeated hand work, while the spring kept the scissors open between cuts.

Nurseryman Scissors

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Made in Sheffield
Details
- Category
- Garden
- Type
- Garden scissors, Herb scissors, Rose pruners
- Use
- Pruning, trimming, floristry, herbs, and general garden work
- Total length
- 8.25″ / 209 mm
- Blade length
- 2.25″ / 56 mm
- Weight
- 395 g
- Steel
- 440B stainless steel
- Forging
- Hot drop forged
- Finish
- Hand polished
- Packaging
- Leather pouch handmade in Sheffield
- Handedness
- Ambidextrous



The Nurseryman
We found the Nurseryman pattern in the basement archives of Footprint Tools, one of Sheffield’s last remaining forging companies. The pattern is believed to date from around the 1950s.
At the time, patterns like this would have been used in nurseries, greenhouses and gardens for continuous hand work. In recent years, more people have started growing again. Herbs on windowsills, tomatoes in greenhouses, small gardens behind city houses. The Nurseryman felt worth bringing back into use.
Together with the University of Sheffield and the Royce Discovery Centre, we worked to recreate the pattern for forging again in Sheffield. Using a 3D metal printed model, new forging dies and cutting tools were developed and the scissors were forged by Footprint Tools, only a short distance from our workshop at Kutrite Works.
For the Nurseryman, we chose 440B stainless steel. Its higher carbon content gives good edge retention, while the stainless properties make it well-suited to repeated garden use and exposure to moisture.
The Nurseryman has a spring, and the handles move straight up and down, rather than slightly diagonally as with scissors. This means it can be used in either hand. More on ambidextrous scissors.
The leather pouches are handmade in Sheffield by Wildebore Leather at Portland Works.
