Anyone who works in the garden knows just how handy secateurs are, but you may not know how to clean secateurs.
Many Australians love to spend time maintaining their gardens – whether you are an amateur learning on the job or a professional landscaper, it is so important to maintain your tools. You may not have considered cleaning secateurs as important; however, when you consider how many times you reach for them to prune back a bush or cut a branch, the question should be, why wouldn’t you have to clean them?
With proper cleaning and care, secateurs perform more efficiently and effectively and make gardening even more of a breeze. WD-40 offers a wide variety of products you can use to easily and effectively clean and maintain your most trusted gardening tool.
How to Clean Secateurs in 3 Steps
Secateurs are arguably the most diverse gardening tool in your toolbox. They can be used to maintain hedges, bushes, trees, and other plants, cut any rogue branches, and cut flowers. By the nature of their use, secateurs often come across dirt, tree sap, other plant matter and moisture, resulting in the secateurs becoming rusty and corroded. Luckily for avid gardeners, it is super easy to learn how to clean secateurs, and it involves only three steps:
- Wipe Off Any Dirt or Plant Matter
Take a cotton pad and wipe the blades of your secateurs to clean them. For a more precise clean, soak your cotton pad in alcohol or hydrogen peroxide before wiping your blades. You can also use the WD-40 Lawn & Garden Powerful Foaming Cleaner, which quickly covers your secateurs and easily removes even the most stubborn sap or residue.
- Buff with WD-40
Next, pour your WD-40 Specialist Lawn & Garden Powerful Foaming Cleaner onto some steel wool and buff your blades.
- Seasonal Deep Clean
Repeat the above steps and then unscrew the bolts of your secateurs. Take a toothbrush and, with warm soapy water, clean the bolts. Then, take your WD-40 Specialist Lawn & Garden Water Tool Protectant Grease or General Use Lubricant and buff it onto the bolts with your toothbrush. This will provide long term protection against rusting or corrosion until the next deep clean!
How Often Should I Clean Secateurs?
Not only is it important to know how to properly clean secateurs, but it is also important to know how often to clean them. Cleaning your gardening equipment should become a habit implemented after every use to protect them against the elements and maintain their effectiveness. You don’t want to be replacing your equipment because you did not go to the effort of maintaining them regularly, especially when it is so easy to do so with WD-40’s Specialist Lawn & Garden products. You should also seasonally deep clean your secateurs to give the nuts and bolts the same level of attention as the blades. This will prevent any deterioration of any of the mechanisms of the secateurs and improve their functionality and longevity.
How to Clean Secateurs:
You may not be able to see any gardening residue on your secateurs, but, as discussed below, it is still very important to clean them after every use and know how to clean secateurs properly. The WD-40 Specialist Lawn & Garden Powerful Foaming Cleaner is the perfect product to use to quickly and easily clean your secateurs after daily use. Simply spray the formula onto the blades of the secateurs and wipe it off. This will remove any hidden plant residue and prevent any stickiness from building up on your tool. Then apply the Lawn & Garden General Use Lubricant to protect the secateurs from moisture and prevent corrosion and rust.
Why is it Important to Clean Secateurs?
Setting aside how to clean secateurs, you may be wondering, “Why should I spend the time cleaning gardening equipment in the first place?”. Cleaning secateurs is an important step in preventing the spread of infection and disease between various types of plants. If you neglect to clean your equipment, you may be risking infecting all the plants in your garden. This could result in having to uproot diseased or dead plants and wasting all your hard work to maintain your garden. Investing in the WD-40 Specialist Lawn & Garden Powerful Foaming Cleaner and taking the few minutes to properly sterilise your tools is worth it to protect your beautiful plants.
How to Clean Rusty Secateurs
If you’re only just realising that your secateurs have been a bit neglected and rusty already, do not panic! Due to the nature of the great outdoors, garden tools are exposed to the weather during use and are therefore more susceptible to moisture which causes corrosion and rust.
It is not necessarily time to replace your trusty secateurs; they just need a bit of love, attention and for you to properly learn how to clean rusty secateurs. Pour some WD-40 Specialist Lawn & Garden Powerful Foaming Cleaner onto some steel wool and buff the rusty secateurs. This is fast-acting and will cut through any residue that is causing your tool to be clogged. For extremely rusted mechanisms in secateurs, WD-40’s Specialist Fast Release Penetrant with Smart Straw helps to loosen any rusted bolts and seized mechanisms. This will allow you to unscrew the bolts and properly clean them with the Powerful Foaming Cleaner and steel wool. Finally, use the Lawn & Garden General Use Lubricant to protect against any further rusting. And that is how to clean rusty secateurs.
How to Prevent Your Secateurs from Rusting
To avoid the hassle of cleaning rust off your secateurs, your best bet is to prevent your secateurs from rusting in the first place. After every use, simply wipe the blades with a cotton pad soaked in WD-40’s Lawn & Garden Powerful Foaming Cleaner. Then, take your WD-40 Specialist Lawn & Garden General Use Lubricant and pour it on some steel wool to buff the blades. For stronger protection against moisture, substitute the General Use Lubricant for the WD-40 Specialist Lawn & Garden Water Protective Silicone formula. Either will effectively protect your tools from moisture which can cause rust and corrosion. Now you know how to clean secateurs to prevent them from rusting.
How To Look After Your Secateurs With WD-40 Specialist Lawn & Garden
Secateurs are such an important tool in your gardening toolbox, so why wouldn’t you put in an extra few minutes to ensure they are performing at their best? Gardening is meant to be easy and enjoyable, and with WD-40’s Specialist Lawn & Garden range, maintaining your tools can be just as straightforward. So, next time you decide to prune back that hedge, make sure you remember how to clean secateurs, know how to clean secateurs, and are stocked up on the Lawn & Garden products!
Conclusion
WD-40’s Specialist Lawn & Garden range covers all your bases in terms of maintaining any of your gardening tools, including your secateurs. The Powerful Foaming Cleaner is a fast-acting and simple way to ensure that your secateurs are always clean of any pesky sap or plant residue. To ensure that your secateurs are protected from moisture, use the General Use Lubricant, which also keeps your tools free-moving. If you require more water repellent, use the Water Protective Silicone, which coats your secateurs with a thin, clear layer of silicone to create resistance to rust or residue build-up. The whole of the WD-40 Specialist Lawn & Garden range is available at Bunnings. The question of how to clean secateurs has never been more easily answered!