Do you need a pruning knife?

In all honesty, probably not. A pruning knife is useful for cutting soft stemmed plants but I keep my secateurs so sharp that a knife is seldom needed. I keep an Opinel pruning knife in my toolkit but it seldom sees the light of day. Opinel knives have the right balance of price and quality for me. The best pruning knives in my opinon are German made Tina knives but they cost several times as much as their Opinel, Victorinox or Bahco counterparts. If I had more use for a pruning knife, I might opt for a Tina but that is unlikely. I  had a look at a heavy duty Tina pruning knife a few months back to replace one that I lost as an apprentice but at £140, I decided to give it a miss. 

The curved blade of my Opinel knife is used to gather the stems to facilitate cutting. Sharpening a curved blade is a not a simple task for a conventional whetstone, Tina make a curved stone for curved blades but in all honesty, my Swiss made Istor sharpener is able to do the job easily and I get great results. 

My Opinel pruning knife