Gifts for gardeners: Great last-minute ideas for green thumbs
I don’t particularly like shopping at the mall or at department stores, especially during the holiday season. But turn me loose with my debit card in a garden center or gift shop with garden-related gifts, and I can quickly fill the largest shopping cart.
This year, if that hard-to-buy-for individual on your list happens to be a gardener or environmentalist, consider treating them to a garden-related gift. Whether you are shopping for an experienced gardener or an aspiring one, he or she will eagerly await spring when they receive a gardening gift this holiday season. If you like to shop without leaving your recliner, there are many online options for garden-related gifts.
Here are some ideas for useful last-minute gardening gifts this holiday season:
Gifting a plant a colorful option
No gift says Happy Holidays better than a live plant. Traditional holiday plants such as poinsettia, amaryllis, Christmas cacti, and paperwhites are always appropriate and make beautiful live holiday decor. Other flowering plants such as red or white cyclamen make festive holiday gifts, and tropical houseplants and succulents make excellent gifts no matter the holiday or season. Unique plant gift options include terrariums, air plants, orchids and small indoor aquatic gardens. For those unable or unwilling to commit to plant care, cut flowers mixed with seasonal greens are always an option.
Suggestions to help stuff stockings
Gardening supplies make great stocking stuffers. Seed packets, gardening gloves and hand tools all fit nicely into a stocking. Most gardeners can use an extra set of pruning shears, and gardeners can never have too many hand trowels! Gardeners love to get their hands dirty, so consider adding high-quality hand soap, some soothing salve, or hand cream to your favorite gardener’s stocking. Other practical gardening gifts that fit into a stocking include plant stakes, tags and ties as well as gardening-related magazines.
More: Tips for buying and caring for a live Christmas tree
Decorative pots add festiveness
An incredible variety of decorative pots in a wide range of styles and materials are currently on the market for both outdoor and indoor use. Resourceful shoppers may even find deep discounts right now on outdoor pots, which retailers hope to clear from their inventories before year’s end. Whichever style of pot you choose, be sure that it contains a drainage hole near the bottom of the pot. A hand-decorated pot makes a fun holiday craft project for kids and a cute gift for grandparents.
Books to keep gardeners busy
To help gardeners survive the long, dark days of winter while they wait to get back outside and dig in the soil, consider gardening-related books and subscriptions to gardening magazines. For many green thumbs, the next best thing to getting their hands into the soil is curling up in a comfy chair reading about new things they can do with their hands in the soil.
More: 5 tips for maintaining healthy houseplants during winter months
A gift for the birds
Gardeners understand the benefits of attracting wildlife and beneficial insects to their gardens and home landscapes, and bird houses and feeders, bee hotels, bat houses, bird baths and butterfly homes can make perfect gifts for the environmentally conscious gardener on your list.
Garden bling to dress up the landscape
Bring the bling to the garden or home landscape with yard ornaments made of glass, metal, pottery or other materials. At this time of year, many garden centers offer deep discounts on these outdoor items, making it a perfect time to splurge and add some color and bling to the dreary monochromatic winter landscape.
Give a gardening experience
Many individuals, particularly millennials, value the gift of an experience, and memberships or admission passes to public gardens, arboreta and gardening events make excellent holiday gifts. Local options include Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Chadwick Arboretum on the Ohio State University campus, and the Dawes Arboretum near Newark. For the tourist gardeners on your list other Ohio options include the Cleveland Botanical Garden, Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in Akron, Kingwood Center Gardens in Mansfield, and Krohn Conservatory in Cincinnati.
Consider the gift of your time
For senior citizens and other gardeners who may need some assistance with larger gardening or home-landscape maintenance tasks, consider a gift card from a nursery or landscape company for professional landscape maintenance or improvements. You might also choose to give the gift of your labor to assist a gardener with gardening or landscape tasks next season.
No matter which type of gardening gift you choose to give, it will bring holiday joy to the recipient and continued enjoyment throughout the gardening season for years to come.
Mike Hogan is an Extension Educator, Agriculture & Natural Resources and associate professor with Ohio State University Extension. hogan.1@osu.edu.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Great last-minute gift ideas for the gardener on your holiday list
