Gardena 7.4V 2500mAh Li-ion Cordless Sprayer Replacement Battery

My Gardena shrub shears cut fine for a few passes then start struggling through branches they handled easily before — is the battery dying or is something else wrong?

That symptom — strong start, then progressive weakening mid-session — is almost always voltage sag under load, not a dead cell. At 7.4V nominal, a Li-ion pack at partial charge can't sustain the current spike a cutting blade needs when it bites into thicker stems. Before assuming the battery is faulty, charge it fully and check the resting voltage with a multimeter: a healthy pack should read between 8.2V and 8.4V fully charged. If it reads below 7.8V after a full charge cycle, the cells are capacity-faded and won't recover.

Charged the replacement battery overnight and the shears still won't power on — no lights, nothing

A brand-new Li-ion pack shipped in storage mode will sometimes read too low for the tool's battery management system to recognize it, so the shears stay dark even though the battery isn't defective. The fix is to connect the battery to the charger first and confirm the charger shows an active charge light — not a fault or full indicator — and let it run a complete cycle before seating it in the tool. If the charger itself shows no activity or flashes a fault pattern immediately, the pack voltage has dropped below the charger's recovery threshold; some chargers will not attempt to revive a deeply discharged cell. Try a different compatible Gardena charger if one is available, and check whether the pack voltage reads above 5.5V before writing it off.

The battery gets warm really fast and the shears stop mid-cut — is that a charger problem or a battery problem?

Heat buildup that triggers a mid-cut shutdown is the thermal protection circuit doing its job — the question is what's generating the heat. On a 7.4V Li-ion pack this compact, heat usually comes from a high-resistance connection at the contacts rather than from the cells themselves, especially on a new replacement where the terminals haven't seated cleanly. Check both the battery contacts and the tool's contact pins for corrosion, debris, or slight misalignment and clean them with a dry cloth before the next charge cycle. If the pack is still warm to the touch within the first few minutes of light use after cleaning the contacts, the issue is internal cell resistance — measure the pack voltage immediately after it shuts off: a healthy pack under this load should still be above 7.0V at cutoff.