Do you know what a secateur is? I encountered the word a few years ago in a magazine featuring Martha Stewart, who was describing the fine points of the secateur she was marketing.

A secateur is simply handheld pruning shears. Leave it to Martha to make a basic gardening tool sound fancy. As they say in marketing, don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle.

Late fall is a time to cut back certain perennial flower types, and although my old pruning shears don’t deserve to be called a secateur, they do the job. Other favorite tools make the task even more effortless.

Before we discuss my favorite tools for pruning perennials, let’s talk about fall cleanup of the perennial garden. When I was a boy gardening with my mom, we would clear-cut the perennial garden each fall, cutting everything down

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