Which are the best gardening gloves?
As a garden blogger, I’m often given free gardening gloves to review.
However, I also buy them, because not all gardening gloves are the same. There are very big differences in comfort, protection and durability.
My favourite gardening gloves…
How to buy gardening gloves
Ideally you should try gardening gloves on before you buy them. I went into a garden centre recently, and managed to try on at least one of each pair of gloves without disturbing the labels. I was glad I had. All the gloves were stiff and uncomfortable. They felt cheaply made, and I wouldn’t personally want to wear them at all. There were no alternatives in the store.
Of course, everyone’s hands are different – which is why trying gloves on first is so helpful.
But I have enough faith in my favourite gloves to be able to say that I believe they’d suit anyone, so I am going to recommend three brands of gardening glove here – Showa, Cobra and Fiskars.
Of course, they aren’t the only three good gardening glove brands, but they are the three that I have worn repeatedly for quite a long time. They haven’t fallen apart, they’re comfortable to wear, and I haven’t lost them.
You may think that it is not a glove brand’s fault if you lose it. But I suspect that when we really love a pair of gardening gloves, we take a lot more care with them!
Disposable gardening gloves
If you’re doing delicate gardening jobs, such as potting up seedlings and writing labels, then I find disposable gloves (as used in hospitals) much easier to use. You can feel what you’re doing, and it’s closer to having bare hands.
However, you do throw them away after one use. I’m trying to be more sustainable in the garden, so I’m going to use these less.
I used to buy any brand, thinking there wasn’t much difference between one disposable glove and another. Until I bought a box of very uncomfortable disposable gloves.
So I’ve researched disposable gloves. There are three different choices. You can buy latex gloves, nitrile gloves or vinyl gloves.
I bought one box of each type, choosing the brands that had the highest number of stars on Amazon. I bought the same size in each brand. See below for the verdicts.
What makes a good gardening glove?
The three qualities that make a good gardening glove – in my opinion – are durability, flexibility and how well they protect your hands.
Look for extra reinforcement around the palm and fingertips. A good gardening glove should be flexible across the knuckles, so you can clench a fist comfortably. And it should fit well around the wrist. I’ve demonstrated this in the video here:
Bright colours can also be a good idea, because you can see the glove more easily if you drop it. But many brightly coloured gloves also seem to be cheaply made – marketed for how they look rather than how they perform.
So here are my favourites.
You can either buy them by clicking on the links below. They’re Amazon affiliate links, which means I may get a small fee if you buy, but it won’t affect the price you pay. And it certainly doesn’t affect my recommendation of which gloves to buy!
Or you can click on the company names here to find your local stockists: Showa, Cobra and Fiskars. The Cobra gloves weren’t available from Amazon, but the link should take you through to the right page on the Cobra website.
And do tell me if you have a favourite gardening glove you can recommend too.
For videos on gardening tips, visits to private gardens and interviews with garden experts, do take a look at the Middlesized Garden YouTube channel. We upload every Saturday, and sometimes on Wednesdays.
The Middlesized Garden is a participant in the Amazon Associates LLC, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk
I bought landscaping gloves specifically to load, found, and cargo for music concerts. These are light, breathable, fit well and have a secure fit, which I’m very proud of. I’ve got used them several times thus far and they are holding up fine as is that the main guideline to safeguard my hands.
Thank you for this v useful review. I can vouch for the excellence of the gold leaf gloves for roses and also like the Showa, but am looking for something even more ‘second skin’ without going disposable. I’m wondering if you’ve found any hat do this?
I’m afraid the only ones I’ve found that are more ‘second skin’ than Showa are disposable – and I do find them more comfortable for gardening. Showa do a disposable nitrile gloves which is biodegradable, but I haven’t tried them. Let me know if you find something better!
A couple of years ago I bought a pair of Briers gloves, they’re the first gloves of any type I still have and know exactly where they are, that can’t be said of many other things in my possession!
They’re strong enough to let me pull up raspberry cane runners and to handle pruning thorny roses with a bit of care. They fasten at the wrist which enables me to wear wrist supports as well.
They’ve survived plenty of washes and are still intact and supple.
Thank you for adding your favourite to this post.