The Recent Hundred Rate It Above the Listing's Own Average

The listing carries a lifetime average of 4.6 stars across 7,602 ratings. The 100 most recent reviews we read come out at 4.79: 88 five-star, 6 four-star, 3 three-star, 3 two-star and no one-star reviews at all. Every one of the 100 is a verified purchase. A recent average nearly two tenths above the lifetime figure is unusual, and it means whatever pulled the headline number down happened earlier in the product's life, not in the year of orders these hundred cover.

Two caveats before anyone gets carried away. First, this is string, and people review string briefly. 19 of the 100 reviews are three words or fewer, single-word verdicts like Great or Good, and 36 run to five words or fewer. Those add stars to the average without telling you much. Second, the low scores do not all describe a fault. EW gave two stars with the single word "Useful". Nobaim gave three stars to a review that reads as praise: strong, durable, in use on the allotment. Read the text rather than the stars on those two and they look like satisfied customers who tapped the wrong number.

That leaves four low-scored reviews with an actual complaint in them, and we go through each one further down. The reviews that do say something concrete cluster hard around three ideas: strong, value and plenty of it. 26 of the 100 describe the twine as strong, sturdy, heavy duty or not snapping. 22 mention value or price. 14 remark on how much is on the roll. The listing puts that at 101 m, or 333 ft, on a cardboard-cored spool, and the image callouts confirm 2 mm diameter and 3-ply construction. Nine reviewers comment on the thickness and every one of them is content with it, Al Brent and dotty dot among them, and one Amazon Customer picked it precisely because the local DIY stores did not stock anything thicker.

Tomatoes, Runner Beans, Roses and a Pea Trellis Built From One Roll

Plant tying is what most reviewers bought it for. Tomatoes come up in 3 of the 100 reviews, runner beans in 2, climbing roses in 2, sweet peas in 2, and the greenhouse in 4. MB, five stars, uses it across the whole garden for tomato plants and a cucumber trellis. Shylo went further and built a whole pea support from one roll: "Managed to make this whole trellis and had a small bit left." That is a useful benchmark for allotment holders. One 101 m roll is roughly one netted pea or bean frame, with not much left over for the tomatoes afterwards, so buy two if you are doing both.

The "gentle on stems" line on the listing gets more backing than we expected for something this cheap. Six reviewers touch on it. Andrew Bruce, tying in a framework for climbing roses, says it "doesn't cut into the stems". Karia.. switched away from clips for tender plants, noting that "Plastic clips can rub in." Two further reviewers, Hazel and MR LUCIANO PISCOPO, independently land on the same soft-but-strong pairing, and Looby Lou adds that it comes off easily at the end of the season. For UK growers that matters most from June to September, when cordon tomatoes and runner beans put on weight fast and a thin plastic tie or wire will bite into a swelling stem within a fortnight. A 2 mm jute strand has enough surface to spread the load, and jute has a little give in it as the stem thickens.

Sweet peas get two mentions and both are happy ones. Newmum tied theirs in until the plants took hold on their own. Diggy's "love climbing up this hairy jute string", which is the other point in jute's favour on a wigwam: the fuzz gives tendrils something to grip that smooth polypropylene does not. Maggs adds the note most of us actually care about, that it "so far hasn't snapped in the poor bi-polar weather". Four reviewers use it in the greenhouse, where a rustic look matters less than the fact that it does not stain and does not slip on a cane once knotted.

Gift Wrap, Cards and a Theatre Prop: The Indoor Half of the Reviews

11 of the 100 reviews mention crafts, gift wrapping, parcels or decorations, and several of those are people who bought it for the garden and then found it migrating indoors. Luke used it mainly on plants and then wrapped a few gifts with it. D. Mead has used it "for gardening, decorating cards and presents" and says it looks great. CEED88 found it good for wrapping too, used a whole roll, and bought a second.

Lawrence King, whose review is one of only two in the set to pick up three helpful votes, bought it to make a prop and reports the spool was "definitely more than I expected for the price", with plenty left for future craft projects. James Keenan's five-star review is purely about looks, praising the thickness and colour and calling it "Perfect for gifting." The colour in question is the untreated tan-brown that the listing calls rustic brown and the image callout labels natural colour; on brown kraft paper it gives the standard farm-shop hamper look without any effort.

The listing's own craft images show macrame plant hangers, a twine-wrapped star and cone, a crocheted basket and a beaded hanger, so ANSIO is courting this market as hard as the garden one. Two things are worth knowing. First, 3-ply 2 mm is at the chunky end for bows on small gift tags; it is closer to parcel string than to bakers' twine, and you will want sharp scissors because the fibres fray if you saw at them. Three reviewers mention cutting and all say it cuts cleanly. Second, indoor users are the group most affected by the one repeat complaint in the set, the smell, which gets its own section next. If your project is a table centrepiece for a room people will sit in for hours, read that first.

Where the Three Stars Went: Smell, a Lost End and One 'Very Weak'

Three of the 100 reviews mention smell, and it is the only complaint that recurs. An Amazon Customer gave three stars: "Smells awful, wanted for indoor project, not able to use as the smell is way to strong, smells like a car workshop" (sic). Colleen O'Neill, also three stars, reports a really strong smell and nothing else. A third Amazon Customer still gave four stars for good natural garden string but added "Quite smelly!" Jute is a plant fibre that is normally oiled during spinning, and a freshly wrapped 101 m spool holds a fair amount of that. Outdoors, none of the other 97 reviewers thought it worth a mention. Indoors, unwrap it and leave it in the shed or a ventilated room for a few days before it goes anywhere near a gift or a mantelpiece.

The second complaint is the one from the intro. lundalodge, two stars: "Could not find the beginning of the string". Against that, an Amazon Customer who has bought it multiple times mentions "a little sticker attached to help you find the end", and Vivien Tallis-Evans lists "Unravels easily" among the reasons for five stars. Our reading is that the sticker is there but easy to miss under the outer wraps. The spool has an open cardboard core, visible in the listing photos, and the loose end normally sits tucked into the top layer rather than down the middle.

Third is the outlier. No Use For a Name gave two stars and wrote two words: "Very weak". That is one review against 26 that describe the twine as strong, sturdy, heavy duty or unbroken under tension. We cannot tell from two words whether that buyer got a bad spool, expected rope, or was pulling on it in a way 2 mm jute was never going to survive. It is worth reporting because it is the only strength complaint in the hundred, and equally worth weighting at exactly one in a hundred.

So the largest failure cluster in the recent reviews is three people out of 100, and it is a smell, not a failure of the string itself. Two of those three still gave three stars rather than one.

Green Bin at the End of the Season, and the Green String That Stained Fingers

Four reviewers bring up the biodegradable or recyclable angle unprompted. kevin g. has bought it before and likes that you "can put it in the green bin when finished". Poppy is pleased to have something biodegradable "even if it is only string". M calls it "infinitely better than plastic strings" if garden aesthetics matter to you. The listing states 100% natural jute, reusable, compostable and fully biodegradable, with no dyes or coatings mentioned, which squares with what reviewers describe. Practically, that means the ties come off the tomato canes in October and go straight into the compost heap or the council garden-waste bin with the haulms, rather than being picked out one by one.

VoiceOfRaisin raises a point anyone who has used dyed green garden twine will recognise: their "last stuff was green which stained our fingers so no chance of that with this stuff". Undyed jute leaves nothing on your hands but a bit of fluff.

Then there are the uses nobody at ANSIO planned for. Brian used a length as a wick "to water the plants in my greenhouse while I was away" and said it did exactly what they wanted. That is a legitimate trick: jute draws water by capillary action, so a strand running from a jar of water into each pot keeps the compost damp while you are gone. David Church strung it as a guide line for hedge trimming because it "keeps tension well". VDK ties up the cardboard recycling with it. Philip A Wilkins summed the whole product up as "A long ball of garden string = helpful to tie thing up with" (sic), which is about right.

One detail needs flagging. Autolocus, five stars, describes two balls, "the included scissor" and a little loop for hanging the ball while you work. The Pack of 1 listing describes a single spool and mentions no scissors, so that review most likely refers to a multi-pack variant sold on the same page. Do not order this one expecting scissors in the box.

Scored 4.7: Who Buys It, and Who Airs It Out First

Our score is 4.7 out of 5, and here is the working. The 100 most recent reviews average 4.79, above the listing's own lifetime 4.6. 94 of them are four or five stars. Nobody gave one star. The largest cluster of complaints is three people mentioning smell. 26 reviews call it strong, 22 call it good value, 14 comment on the length of the roll, and three say they have bought it before or since. We have taken a little off the top because more than a third of the reviews are five words or fewer and tell us nothing beyond the star, because the listing has no product description or stated weight, and because three people took the trouble to write the smell down.

Who should buy it: anyone tying in tomatoes, beans, sweet peas, roses or climbers this season, anyone who wants their ties to go in the compost with the plants, and anyone who, like Maggs, is tired of paying shop prices for a small ball of the same stuff. Allotment holders should budget one roll per netted frame based on Shylo's experience, and greenhouse growers can add Brian's watering-wick trick to the list of reasons.

Who should think twice: if the project is indoor decor in a small room and you are sensitive to smells, unwrap it and let it air for a few days first, or accept that undyed jute has an odour. If you want bakers' twine for delicate tags, 2 mm 3-ply is chunkier than you need. And if you want scissors in the box, buy a set that lists them.

For everything else, it is 101 m of sound 2 mm jute with a recent review record most garden products would envy, and the lowest score anyone gave it in the last hundred was two stars. Check the current listing for today's price and stock.