70s or 80s sci-fi book, boy has secateur hand

Question

I'm looking to identify a sci-fi book I read a few times as a tween / young teen in the 80s. Set in the future where jobs are predetermined and the body is manipulated accordingly. The main character is a young man who is a gardener, and his (probably left) hand is shaped into secateurs (pruning shears). The cover art had him with his love interest, and he had the secateur hand on her shoulder, I think.

The only other thing I remember is that the weather could be controlled, so it only rained at night.

Answer 1

The Others by Alison Prince.

The cover doesn't show the secateur hand, but the description does mention it:

Ergo, with his secateur fingers and his green twine hair, can see no way out of the Underhill system, designed for the privileged Others of Air City. But by a freak of fate he meets Wenti, a girl who comes from the Others, but is troubled by the injustice of the system they have created.

Falling in love with Wenti makes Ergo's dream of creating a more equal world seem almost possible. But the dangers are terrible. Will Dr Klops use his lethal powers against Ergo's mother? Is the cool Inspector Kanchu of Air City playing a double game?

Ergo is plunged into a fight for his life, and for the survival of everything he values. In this fast-moving adventure story, set in a post-nuclear-holocaust age, Alison Prince captures the horror, and humour, of this new world and has made Ergo a hero of universal appeal.