stay away from off brands. if all you're using it for is gardening a ryobi would be fine. if doubling as a carpentry tool get a Dewalt or Milwaukie or Makita. watch for a sale. beware of used cordless tools. the batteries are usually on their last leg & are expensive. i use my sawzall to separate roots & for light pruning.

An axe and splitting maul work just fine too.

I have seen people use a sawzall for this too.

get a TREE blade also ... the lumber blade that come with it wont work as well .. because the teeth are too fine and too close together ...

a tree blade should have the same blade as your folding tree pruning saw ... like this:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sawzall+tree+blade&t=ffab&ia=web

if you can find one with 2 batteries .. that might be a good deal ... if you end up loving it.. investing in a second battery might be wise ...

i think i got my Milwaukee at lowes ...

with a little practice.. i could do enough BIG damage on one battery charge.. that it would take me a couple hours to clean it up .. while the battery recharged .... it just took a bit of planning ....

ken

@porkchop_z5b_MI , my husband just purchased this little Bosch reciprocating saw for me. It’s smaller and lighter-weight than the comparable Ryobi saw, so it’s easy for me to use one-handed. He also purchased a set of blades for me, as the one it came with is a little on the short side. But I am definitey going to look into a tree blade…I didn’t even know such a thing existed, @ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5!!

think lumberjack ... sing the old song in your head if you are old enough .. lol ..

lumberjacks saw wet wood ... so the teeth are large and far apart.. with large spaces so wet sawdust can be raked out as you saw ...

lumber.. as in house building ... is dry ... so you dont need to rake out wet gobs of sawn wood ... all that need be done is for dry dust to be pulled out ...

using a lumber blade to prune is maddening ... the blade keeps binding because of the built up wet saw dust ....

btw ... using them in the ground is not easy ... as your machine will make them bend .... when you hit roots or stone or clay ....

pretty sure i do recall grass peeps lassoing their tall grasses.. binding them tight. and then using the saw to cut them done to a few inches or so ...

ken

"pretty sure i do recall grass peeps lassoing their tall grasses.. binding them tight. and then using the saw to cut them done to a few inches or so ..."

Yep, did that with the hedge trimmers, works great. Tying them up first works great even if you do it by hand, and since they're already tied up, just have to pick up the bundles and haul them away.

I just use an old pruning saw I keep specifically for cutting up dense, heavy rootballs. Works a treat for me and I am getting up there for a lot of heavy duty gardening chores 😁