I have one I got at Wal-Mart that I love - Fiskars ratcheted loppers. They'll cut through anything 'like butta'.

I've had some felcos for years and I know I'll have them for many more years. I use the HARD at rose pruning time and they do need to be resharpened. I don't know that Felco pruners are "the best" but they are surely high quaility! I also use Felco clippers and have used numerous others but none feel as good as the Felcos nor have lasted as long. Again, they will need sharpening.

I also use the Felco clippers. I can't remember when I bought them. It is that long! They are heavily used.

I'm like Laura1. I don't know if Felco's are the best, but I surely love my Felco pruners, loppers, and pruning saw. I FINALLY treated myself to these tools after 30 years of gardening. What a wonderful gift I gave myself.

I have Fiskar scissors in my sewing basket and have no complaints with them either.

I bought my Felco tools at Frostproof (link below). At the time their prices were excellent and my order arrived very quickly. This was about 6-7 years ago; you might consider them in your search.

June

Here is a link that might be useful: Frostproof

I agree, there's nothing like the Felco pruner. I've had mine for years too and use it constantly.

But that fiskar lopper - I think it's called Power Gear - is an amazing tool.

My kids gave me Mammouth loppers from Lee Valley tool for Christmas several years ago. They will cut up to a 2" branch, were not expensive (compared to the Felcos) and have held up well.

Peachpaws, I googled Lee Valley Mammoth loppers and found they are manufactured in Canada, but I'm having trouble finding if and where they are sold in Florida.

I have broken more loppers than I care to admit. My experiance tells me that I usually tried to cut something larger than I should have and ended up either damaging the tissue of the plant/tree I was pruning or breaking the loppers. I never use loppers any more unless trimming something with thorns, in fact I don't own a pair of loppers. If I cannot make a good cut with my Felco snips, then I use a saw. Loppers are good for cutting up large pruned debris into smaller pruned debris, but I seldom use them on something attached to a living plant.

For those of you who like loppers, be sure they are the Bypass type (like Felco snips) and not the anvil type, which damages plant tissue by crushing it. A good stout wooden handled one (Corona?) is cheap and works relatively well. Felco loppers are, IMHO, expensive and prone to bending, breaking and having the nuts and bolts falling out.

Jerry it sounds like you are rough on your tools...I can relate-hehe. I've never had a problem with the felco loppers but I've blown out bolts in several purners. I was able to replace the bolt and was told "I've never seen this happen before!" So I'm terribly hard on my tools.
It reminds me of how I used to go through shovels...I'd use them as leverage to get something out of the ground. Shovels were never meant for that.
I push the limit on all my tools.

brute, I'm sure my kids ordered them directly from Lee Valley.

Please let me weigh in. I've bent more replaceable-blade pruners than anyone with a brain would buy. OK, I'm not an especially careful person. That said, unless you're not going to prune anything much woodier than a Floribunda, get cast-metal loppers, such as the Corona-brand that jerryattreezoo recommends (and don't try replaceable-blade hand pruners on a large Floribunda branch). Lowe's sells Coronas. Probably Home Depot, too. And a file to sharpen them with. And ideally a vise to hold them (it really doesn't have to be all that sturdy) while you're sharpening them. I love my Fiskar's shovel (I retired a perfectly good Bulldog spade against day I buy a TGI Friday's and wall-mount it among the decor along with my leaky '68 Royal Enfield Continental GT gas tank soon after buying that Fiskar's shovel), and I love my Fiskar's axe, but my Fiskar's replaceable-blade pruner already won't cut anything that isn't green. Or buy a saw, as suggested by others, above. A small, fine-toothed saw is nice for small branches, though it demands more patience than I usually have (I sometimes imagine myself floating about the yard, Crouching-Dragon-style, with a yew-handled, flush-cut saw of Hitachi rail steel, but the event remains imaginary.)

you should mount it onto a nice log that is cut through, about 10-20cm thick. tighten it with 4-6 nails, then take and old stocking (Panty hose) and tie it extremely tight to the log. feed it banana and water for as long as you have your happy stag-horn plant. There are apparently 11 different stag-horn in the world, I got mine from a lady who's husband has got 9 out of 11.

Rietha, did you mean to post your email on the open forum? Might want to rethink that. Bots crawl this site all the time. At least change the @ to AT or something like that.

No, not on the open forum, My mistake, they used part of my email address as the user name, was little confused, but changed it. thanks for your concern. I get enough spam, drives me CRAZY!!!

rstanny, what about a alligator powered lopper to help, seems to me just what I need

I have a very old pair of Corona long-handled loppers I bought in 1997 from Home Depot. The wooden handles are loose now, and I'm dreading the day they don't work anymore. I sharpen them once a year and they stay sharp through thick and thin. When the handles finally break, I'm going to have someone make custom handles so I can keep on using them. I paid $29 for them even way back then, and they're about $50 or a little over now. I also have a couple of pairs of Corona clippers I'm madly in love with. I've replaced the springs twice, but they still keep going.

Brute, you've got a lot of answers here already, but I'll tell you man, the best loppers period is the Bahco 1.25 inch model as sold by the A.M. Leonard Co. Trust me on this-you might be reading "what, only an inch and a quarter"? That is a very conservative rating and these things easily outperform much larger and clunkier models. I'm a pro horticulturist, and while pruning is a tiny part of my life and work these days, I used to do tons of it. You won't be sorry for having spent the 70-some bucks for this pro-quality tool.

Glad there is another Corona fan here. I just found out they sell replacement handles for my loppers, which makes me extremely happy. Someone suggested Gorilla Glue in the meantime to stop the wobbling, so I'll try that.

Get one of those Bahcos I mentioned above and you will have no need of gluing down any parts-these are pro-grade tools and cut so much better than anything else I've tried-and that's a lot of tools-that they clearly stand alone. A.M. Leonard's the place.

Yea I think Corona has a great line of tools that are in the right price ballpark. The homeowner grade stuff sucks but the professional line is great.

wisconsitom, my loppers have wood handles, and they always wear out at the ends where the blades are stuck in. They're also about 20 years old, and have withstood a lot of abuse and hard use, so time for them to wear out.

Sure, any tool can wear out, no question. But honestly, I used to make my living with pruning tools and that Bahco from AM Leonard cannot be beat. There are a lot more decent tools available these days from hardware stores that I'm reasonably sure most of my words in this thread are falling on deaf ears. Nevertheless, I do know whereof I speak.