These Gardening Gloves Are a Green Thumb’s Best Friend

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It may seem like getting your hands dirty is part and parcel to gardening, but it doesn’t have to be. A good set of gardening gloves not only keeps your mitts clean, it also protects them from stinging thorns and blisters earned after long days of weeding and digging.

You and your garden will both benefit from you taking the time to pick the right type of glove for the job. Some are made from heavy leather that can ward off thorns. Others are more flexible, giving your fingers the freedom of movement you need to handle delicate plants or work a set of garden shears. Luckily, we can help make sure you pick the right set for the gardener in your life. We’ve worn our fair share of gardening gloves for a variety of jobs and can help you pick out a perfect pair.

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The Best Gardening Gloves

What to Consider When Buying Gardening Gloves

Material

With gardening gloves, the thickness makes all the difference. Depending on the material they’re made from, different gloves are made with specific tasks in mind. Speaking generally, you want to look for thinner gloves if you only want to keep your hands clean, since they won't be as restrictive. Thicker gloves provide protection, which you may need when dealing with roses or digging around in an unfamiliar garden.

Leather gloves offer the most comprehensive protection. They resist punctures from thorns, making them an ideal choice for pruning rose bushes or thornier weeds like nettle. While they keep your hands safe, leather gloves are often thick, restricting your finger movement more than other, thinner materials. That may make it more challenging to handle more delicate plants and gardening tools. Some gloves take a hybrid approach, combining leather palm with a spandex backing to allow for more flexibility.

Fabric gloves feature stretchy materials like bamboo or spandex with a latex coating around the fingers and palm. The fabric fits snugly around your hand and bends with your fingers to give you as much manual dexterity as possible so you can pick up plantings or manipulate gardening shears and other small tools. The latex adds grip and provides some protection for your palm and fingers, though thorns will likely pierce through

Knit gloves, made from cotton or polyester, are lightweight, comfortable, and offer mild protection from cold weather. Like fabric gloves, they feature a latex or silicone treatment on the fingertips and palm to provide extra grip. Knit gloves offer virtually no protection and aren’t as breathable as a synthetic fabric. They will keep you warm in the early days of the season, though, and are great for moving planters around or raking leaves in the fall.

Coverage

In addition to protecting your hands, gardening gloves usually cover at least part of your wrists, and may go up to your forearms. In most cases, expect them to extend just beyond your wrists to cover your forearm, with elastic bands at the ends to hold them tight to your arms. The closed wrist keeps dirt from finding its way into the glove.

More protective gloves will have cuffs that extend half-way up your forearms to shield you from thorns while pruning rose bushes and the like. You only want to use gloves with extended cuffs when you’re working with thorns, as they can feel very restrictive, verging on uncomfortable.

Bright Colors

While you might be tempted to purchase a set of gloves that coordinates with your work clothes, keep in mind that a bright, colorful pair of gardening gloves serve a technical purpose, in addition to a stylistic one.

Wearing bright, neon gardening or work gloves makes it easier to see your fingers while digging through the dirt, which helps you keep them out of harm’s way while you use pruners and shears. They’re also easy to spot in the dirt, so you’re less likely to leave them behind or misplace them.

Fit

Though it isn’t always possible to try on a pair of gardening gloves before you buy them, it’s a good idea to do so if you can. When you pull on a pair of gloves, they should fit snugly around your fingers without feeling too tight. There shouldn't be any large gaps between the ends of the fingertips, but you should leave a little space to prevent the gloves from pushing painfully against your fingernails. The wrist enclosure should sit on your wrist without being too high or too low.

We recommend avoiding “one-size-fits-all” gloves, as they typically won’t fit properly. If you’re buying gloves online, look for brands like CoolJob and WorkPro, which offer detailed sizing charts or even printouts that allow you to measure your hand against specific glove sizes. If you’re shopping from a site that offers free shipping on returns, consider buying several sizes to find the perfect fit.

How We Selected The Best Gardening Gloves

To make my picks, I relied on my many years of testing gardening gloves while planting, landscaping, and building. I’m an avid gardener, and quite familiar with the pains that weeding and digging can impose on the hands if you fail to protect them. I also regularly use work gloves to complete home renovation projects or work on my car or RV.

In addition to testing and hands-on experience, I also poured through expert reviews written by experts from such publications as Tom’s Guide, The Spruce, and The New York Times to find additional options. Whether you’re raking up leaves, trimming your prized rose bushes, or weeding out your garden, we have the right pair of gloves for the job.

Pine Tree Tools Bamboo Working Gloves

Landing at the perfect price point for an affordable but reliable gardening glove, this pair is made from breathable bamboo fabric, which allows your fingers to move freely and comfortably. The palms and fingertips are covered by a textured rubber coating to keep your hands safe and dry, while ensuring a strong grip. And while the bamboo fabric is green, the black textured coating makes visibility amidst your garden greenery easier.

It's also worth noting that — unlike is the case with some options — these gloves are extremely easy to clean: Think just a simple toss in the mashing machine. After all, there's nothing worse than gardening gloves packed with years' worth of caked-on dirt.

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Terrain Floral Garden Weeder Gloves

These flexible nylon gardening gloves keep your mitts safe while you're digging, pruning, and weeding, all without compromising dexterity. Better for light garden work than heavy lifting, they have an appropriately snug fit, and are quite tough, despite their flowery design.

The machine-washable nylon nitrile blend resists ripping, and the palms and fingers have a rough texture, which makes it easy to grip a set of pruning shears or an offending weed. Elastic around the wrist prevents soil from finding its way inside the gloves.

These floral weeder gloves are available in three women’s sizes, so you can find a size that fits snugly.

Famoy Claw Gardening Gloves

For those moments when you need to set aside the spade and dig by hand, this pair of gardening clawed gloves lets you burrow through rocky soil without a care. They come with four plastic claws per hand, which let you dig into stubborn patches while sifting away rocks and debris.

There’s also a puncture-resistant rubber coating around the fingers, thumb and palm, so you can really drive the claws aggressively. The stretchy material runs up over the wrists for more protection while you're digging around. When the day’s work is over, just run them under the sink to clear the residual dirt off the claws.

Magid HandMaster Professional Synthetic Suede Rose Pruning Gloves

If your blooming rose bushes are your pride and joy, make sure you have the proper attire to maintain their beauty all season. The reinforced pruning gloves from Magid resist thorns to keep you safe while tending to your rose bushes.

In addition to being thorn-resistant, these synthetic suede gloves have extended cuffs, which allow you to get up to your elbows in pruning without getting pricked. There are also extra layers of material to protect your knuckles and a spandex back that gives you enough mobility to work a set of pruners and grip plant stems.

Cooljob Gardening Gloves

If you're lucky enough to have multiple sets of hands to help you pull weeds and spread mulch, then this bundle of six pairs of gardening gloves from CoolJob will let you outfit the whole family affordably. These comfortable polyester fabric gloves have a latex coating that conforms to your hand, providing flexibility and protection. I also like the elastic wrist, which keeps dirt from finding its way inside the glove.

Each bundle comes with two colors, and there are lots of options to choose from. If you buy a few two-packs instead of six-pack, you can give everyone their own.

It’s also worth noting that Cooljob makes “Men’s” and “Women’s” versions of these gloves: They are functionally the same, but come in different sizes and colors. We recommend checking the size charts on the listings to figure out which version will fit each of your gardeners.

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Midwest Gloves & Gear Max Grip Gloves

I’ve used this pair of work gloves for years to protect my hands while weeding, or performing regular maintenance with a rake or shovel. They’re covered with tiny grip pads on the palms and insides of the fingers that make it easy to grab a shovel or rake handle. They also work well with a touch screen, which is a plus.

The stretchable spandex backing breathes surprisingly well. I can wear these, even on a warm day, without my hands getting too sweaty. Though the latex coating doesn’t provide as much protection as leather, it’s one of the most versatile gloves I’ve used, which makes a perfect first pair for new gardeners.

Cooljob Bamboo Touchscreen Gardening Work Gloves

Bamboo fabric isn’t as tough as nylon or leather, but it’s renowned for its breathability, which makes these gloves perfect for gardening in warm weather. The glove back and wrist are made from breathable, lightweight bamboo that keeps your hands from getting sweaty.

I also like the fact that bamboo fabric conforms around your hand, giving you more mobility when gripping a rake handle, working a set of pruners, or fishing for a tool in your gardener’s apron.

As the name implies, the nitrile coating on the palm and fingers makes it easy to use your phone without taking the gloves off. The rubber layer also makes it easier to grip a shovel handle and protects your hands while yanking weeds out of your garden.

Handlandy Work Gloves

For some of us, gardening is only part of our overall yard work. If you're not just planting and watering, but also chopping, mowing, building, and firing off crucial texts and emails throughout, you need a glove that can tackle many tasks at once.

These Handlandy work gloves are as well-suited to the garage as they are to the garden. The tips of the thumb, index, and middle fingers are touchscreen compatible, and there's even a terrycloth strip along the thumb for wicking away sweat.

Q+A With Our Expert

BP: What gardening gloves don’t make your hands sweat?

TC: If you want a pair of gloves that won’t make your hands sweat, then you need to look for a pair made with a breathable fabric like nylon or bamboo fabric shell that wicks away moisture and allows water vapor from sweat to escape, so your hands won’t get too sweaty while you work.

BP: Can you wash garden gloves?

TC: It depends on what gloves you buy. Garden gloves made entirely from cloth, such as cotton or nylon, are typically machine wash safe. Gloves made with leather, nitrile, or latex, are not. For leather, you’ll want to use a leather cleaner, such as saddle soap. Nitrile gloves should be hand washed using a mild antibacterial soap while gloves made from spandex with reinforced palms and fingers should be cleaned using a mild detergent.

Most gardening gloves should come with specific care instructions that will tell you exactly how to clean them.

BP: What are the best gloves for removing weeds?

TC: Most weeding jobs call for gardening gloves to simply keep your hands clean. In most cases, spandex or bamboo material gloves with a latex coating are sufficient.

However, if you happen to spot some thorny weeds, such as nettle and thistle, you should use a thicker pair of leather gloves to protect your hands from getting pricked.

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