Here are some guidelines for selecting the right garden shears for the job. Use hedge shears to shape and lightly trim hedges. Select hedge shears that are lightweight and have serrated blades, which cut through heavy material better than straight blades. Use bypass pruners to do most of your garden pruning. Use anvil pruners to do nonexacting work such as thinning shrubs.
Anvil pruners pinch the wood between the blade and a base, making the cut like a knife does.
Use flower shears for cutting flowers. They have an anvil blade that is pointed at both ends, making it easy to get between tight stems. Loppers should have a bypass cutting head so that you can make pruning cuts close to the trunk or stem, and longer handles are nice if you are working on hedges or tall shrubs. Use grass shears for trimming around sprinklers, fence posts or tree trunks. These make quick work of grasses but are inappropriate for cutting anything larger.