The Folding Garden Knife: Monty's Pocket Essential

The garden knife is perhaps the most overlooked tool on this list, yet Monty Don considers it essential. He carries a folding pocket knife whenever he is working outdoors, and it gets used dozens of times a day for tasks that would otherwise require fetching another tool. Cutting string, opening bags of compost, taking cuttings, trimming off dead leaves, sharpening a dibber, scraping soil from a label — the knife handles all of it quietly and efficiently.

What Makes a Proper Garden Knife

A good garden knife has a folding carbon steel blade of about 8 centimetres, with a slight curve to the cutting edge that makes slicing motions effortless. Some gardeners prefer a fixed-blade knife worn in a belt sheath, but Monty favours a folding knife that slips safely into a pocket. The blade should lock open firmly — a knife that folds on your fingers mid-cut is dangerous. Carbon steel is preferred over stainless steel for a garden knife because it takes a sharper edge and is easier to resharpen in the field with a pocket stone.

Why Monty Don Carries One Every Day

In the garden, the knife truly comes into its own for propagation. Taking softwood cuttings requires a razor-sharp blade that makes a clean cut just below a leaf node, and a garden knife, properly sharpened, does this perfectly. It is also invaluable for grafting, though this is a specialised skill. More prosaically, the knife is the tool you use to cut twine to length when tying in climbers, to slice open compost bags, to whittle a pointed end on a bamboo cane, and to scrape your boots clean when the clay gets sticky.

What to Look For When Buying a Knife

When buying a garden knife, prioritise blade quality over everything else. The steel should be high-carbon and capable of holding a sharp edge. The handle material is less important — wood, bone, and synthetic all work well — but the handle shape should fit comfortably in your hand. Test the folding mechanism to ensure it opens smoothly and locks positively. Opinel knives, made in France since 1890, offer outstanding value with their carbon steel blades and simple twist-lock mechanism. For something more traditionally horticultural, the Victorinox garden knife and the classic budding and grafting knives from Sheffield still set the standard.

"A knife should be with you always in the garden. You will use it more than you think — for string, for cuttings, for a hundred small tasks that nothing else does quite as well."

— Monty Don