Fiskars Weed Puller

Fiskars Weed Puller.

If you have a TV in your home that is switched on even occasionally you cannot have failed to notice this all over your screen.  It’s that time of year when our thoughts turn to all those damn dandelions polluting our otherwise perfect lawn.  So is it as easy as it looks in the advert that has been assaulting your senses.  Here at the DIY people we decided to buy one and report on it and let you have the opportunity to submit your Fiskars weed puller reviews.

First here is the Fiskars weeder advert so we all know what we are testing, there is a much more impartial video further down the page as well that is not selling the product.

So we can see from the advert that this thing is simplicity itself to use and of course you will be jumping around with delight like a fairy on steroids once you have used it a few time!  Forgive my cynicism of adverts and advertisers but I’m guessing that is not the reality for most people; however the question is whether it is really any good and what other user experiences have been with it.  The product description from the company goes like this…

“The Fiskars Weed Puller is a great invention for removing weeds, such as dandelions, from the garden. The tool is easy and comfortable to use: no digging or bending down is required and no chemicals are needed. The Weed Puller’s deep-reaching stainless steel claws grab the weed’s root from multiple directions to pull it out of the ground. The ejection system allows a clean and efficient result.

Features

• Deep-reaching stainless steel claws grab the root from multiple directions
• Leverage point from the ground level
• Ejection system helps to release weed after pulling
• Removes weeds without the use of chemicals
• Comfortable working posture, no digging required”

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Fiskars Weed Puller Reviews

So we bought ours from Amazon.co.uk for £31.74 (RRP £39.99) and used free standard delivery, express delivery is available for a cost of £5.95, there are some cheaper sellers on Amazon now but that’s what we paid.

First impressions straight out of the box were that it was nice and lightweight although felt well constructed.  It feels like a well balanced, well make product, it is constructed from hardened aluminium with the teeth being made of stainless steel for strength.  There is some plastic however that made me think it might be a bit flimsy, however in use this proves not to be the case, overall a very well put together piece of kit.

Does The Fiskars Weed Remover Work?

The short answer is yes it does but as usual with some variance from the promoted version of events.  It definitely makes light work of weeding and speeds the whole process up immediately, what seemed like 2 or 3 hours work was done in less than half an hour and with no bending or stooping to talk about making it suitable for just about everyone to use.  There is no real strength requirement as the claws do grip the weed very well and other than a bit of wiggling the leverage provided by the foot step is enough to extract all but the toughest of weeds.  A word of warning both very dry and extremely stony ground would make this process difficult and probably impractical for most people.

In open ground it is simple to position the claws, push into the ground and remove the offending weed, it is well designed so you can get weeds right up close to walls or paths but for those really tight to the wall you may have resort to a little manual digging.

Call me a simpleton but with the weed pulling so easy the best part was the release of the weed into the waiting bag, the release action is like that of a pump action shotgun which made me smile every time I used it.  I even acted out a little as i approached the rubbish bag before letting loose with the pump action :).

The Bad Bits

Holes in the ground; believe it or not when you remove the weed it leaves behind a hole in the ground where the weed used to reside.  This seemed obvious to me but if you spend any time on gardening forums and retailers sites it appears many people do not expect to have holes left behind. When you pull a weed with the Fiskars weed puller there is a hole left behind, however it is smaller than the equivalent hole from traditional methods and should be refilled in the same way with the loose dirt from the weed roots.  I personally didn’t use that method but had a bucket of new lawn compost that i filled the holes with.  Whatever way you do it I do not see this as a negative of the product but rather a law of physics or some such thing.

Poor weed pulling; some talk has been about the failure of the tool to pull ‘proper’ weeds like dandelions and docks etc.  Well I can report in my test using the leverage technique above I successfully extracted a dandelion with roots that were almost 8 inches in length.  Of course there will be some that it cannot cope with that have longer and more stubborn roots.  This problem was exacerbated on very dry and hard ground so my suggestion is to only use when the ground is reasonably soft, let’s face it when the ground is extremely hard you wouldn’t get the trowel out for weeding deep tap roots anyway.

Summary

I loved this product; despite hating weeding I found it a great aid to the job making it a super fast and successful endeavour.  However this is not a huge breakthrough in weed removal, it just does what we always have done with a trowel more elegantly, and with a greater degree of success.  The speed with which you can go and pull weeds of all kinds is phenomenal and its best selling point for me closely followed the ease of use regardless of the ability of the user.

Could anything be done better? Yes as always but this is pretty close to being as good as it can be, my main wish would be for a version with slightly longer claws to allow it to deal with longer rooted plants with more success.  about 30% of the long established dandelions i used it on snapped at the root and the longer claws could reduce that further.

Have you got one? Do you want one?  Want to leave a review or comment? we would love to hear from you..

Some UK stockists of the Fiskars weed puller are…

Amazon.co.uk from £28.99

Argos Price From £29.99

Homebase current price From £29.99

And in the USA..

Amazon.com current price from $28.49

Submit a review of the Fiskars Weed Remover by clicking the button below..