My house sits on a fairly wooded lot.  As much as I love the privacy, all those trees can sometimes cause problems.  Low-hanging branches get in the way when I’m trying to mow my lawn (not that I actually have grass) and they block sunlight from hitting places I’d like it to.  Trees, of course, mean leaves, and my wife certainly isn’t going to clean them up, so every leaf I can prevent from falling on my lawn represents the smallest of victories for me.

It’s also worth mentioning that my house is a little over 10 years old, and I suspect that before I moved in not a single tree, limb, or branch had ever been touched.  In short, I’ve got a bit of an overgrowth situation on my hands.  While down the road I’ll more than likely need a chainsaw to get me where I want to be, I believe in baby steps.  When chainsaws are on the table, a pole pruner really does feel like a baby step.

In truth I could have borrowed my buddy The Bean’s pole pruner, but I tend to be a little hard on gardening tools (saying I stretch their limits is an understatement), so rather than risk damaging a friend’s equipment (not to mention depriving myself of a good review opportunity), I headed off to my local home improvement center, and picked up a Fiskars Telescoping Pruning Stick.  The model I chose, the 9240 has the following features:

• 12′ total extended length
• Rotating Cutting Head
• Rope-free, sliding-handle cutting design
• Included saw blade attachment

As for why I chose the Fiskars over Corona, and the other options available to me…  As I said, the way I use my landscaping tools borders on abuse.  When we moved into our house I bought a pair of Fiskars loppers.  I’ve basically beat the hell out of them and they’ve held up extremely well.  I was impressed enough to buy a Fiskars hand pruner.  That too has held up well, as has my Fiskars rake.

While I didn’t set out to fill a tools shed full of Fiskars, every tools I’ve bought has held up as well as the one before it.  That kind of durability and reliability, and of course the lifetime guarantee, is in no small part why I continue to buy Fiskars tools.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Fiskars Pruning Stik was significantly lighter than the other option, and when you’re working with a fully extended pole saw, weight matters.

Using the Fiskars Pruning Stik

Like most modern pole pruners/saw, the Fiskars 9240 cutting head is chain driven, which makes cutting much easier than a 100% rope driven head.  The Fiskars design actually goes a step further; replacing the standard pull rope with a sliding handle that powers the cutting stroke.  By integrating the heavy-duty nylon pull mechanism into the handle, Fiskars has eliminated the need to reach for swinging ropes, which can be a huge problem when the pruner is fully extended and/or when working on a ladder.

The cutting head can be rotated up to 240 degrees which has allowed me a lot of flexibility in how I make my cuts.  I can go in from the bottom (like I would with a lopper), from above the branch (like I would with a traditional pole pruner), and from any angle in between.  The flexibility is particularly valuable when you need to trim the top branches on ornamental trees, or a troublesome white pine.

Extending the Pruning Stik is exceptionally easy.  There aren’t any clumsy extension poles to worry about.  Instead, simply flip open the locking mechanism, extend the pruner to the desired length, and flip the locking mechanism back to the closed position.

Constructed from heavy duty aluminum, the Pruning Stik is tougher than it looks.  Given what I put it through the first day I used it, I would have been hard pressed to fault it for self-destructing, but instead it held up to everything I through at it.  It cut branches that were probably thicker than what I should have been trying to cut with it.  The saw attachment also made fairly short work of some large limbs.  Even with the pruner fully extended, and working off an 8 foot ladder, the performance of the Fiskars Pruning Stik exceeded by expectations.

Minor Gripes

I ran into two minor issues with my Fiskars 9240.  Firstly, in addition to the integrated handle cutting mechanism, the Pruning Stik has a secondary cutting mechanism.  It’s basically a ball-shaped puller that plugs into the bottom of the handle.  It’s great for cutting with the handle fully extended, but when I was using the Pruning Stik as a pole saw, I found that it had a tendency to pop out a little more often than I would like.  It didn’t hurt performance, but I found it a bit distracting.

The other problem is actually more of a maintenance issue.  When working with the Pruning Stik it’s important to make sure that the nuts and bolts that allow the locking mechanism to secure the extending part of the tool remain tight.  After pruning a couple hundred branches, and sawing a few dozen limbs, the lock loosened enough for the two pieces of the pruner to separate from each other.  I was on a ladder at the time, which made for a few very interesting seconds while I tried to figure out how to free the saw from the cut I was making while not freeing my feet from the ladder.

Once on the ground, it was very easy to tighten things down and get the Pruning Stik working optimally again, but I’d recommend periodically tightening everything up.

It’s also worth pointing out that at 12′ the Fiskars Pruning Stik is a couple feet shorter than many other telescoping pruner options.  I have a very sturdy, and very tall ladder, so I was willing to sacrifice a couple feet of reach for the reduced weight, but it’s something you might want to think about before buying the 9240.

Final Thoughts

Before I settled into a cushy desk job, I spent a few years as a professional landscaper.  I wish I had the Fiskars Pruning Stik back in those days as it’s simply the best pole pruner/saw I’ve ever used.  At almost $80 it might be a bit more expensive than similar models, but for the money you get a lightweight pruner that’s exceptionally easy to use, and extremely durable.  You also get the Fiskars lifetime guarantee, which means it’s the last pole pruner you’ll ever buy.  My best recommendation is to find someone else to do your pruning for you, but for the do-it-yourself crowd, I haven’t seen a better option.  About the only thing the Fiskars Pruning Stik won’t do is bundle all the brush you cut down with it.

The Fiskars Pruning Stik (#9240) is available from Amazon.com for $79.01.  Free shipping is available.