Gardening: Gift Ideas for the Gardeners in Your Life
Cary, NC – The end of the year brings lots of opportunities for gifts. And if you have a gardener in your family or group of friends, there is a never-ending array of gear they can enjoy. Here is a brief guide to what you can get them to make their garden shine.
New gardening tools are always appreciated.
Classic Gifts
Every gardener is going to be using tools. From trowels to small rakes to hand pruners, it’s a necessary part of any gardener’s arsenal and often times they will be using tools they bought decades ago. Like anything, these tools have wear and tear and can become less useful over time. If you’ve noticed your gardener’s tools are starting to look run down, a new one could reinvigorate their work.
Or, if you know your gardener likes to bring their plants indoors and display them in pots and baskets, there are many unique and creative indoor stands nowadays. You could find a staircase-style stand that carries many plants while minimizing space or you can find hanging carriers that give an exotic look to the home.
And if you know your gardener likes a lot of rough work, you can find protective wear to let them get as messy as they want. There are rose gloves, which are very durable but also flexible and light-weight to allow for continuous use in the garden or gardening clogs to keep the feet clean and cut-free while letting the gardener get as into their work as they want.
New Trends
If your gardener wants a challenge or is always looking for something new, think about some new trends in gardening to occupy their time. Growing your own food has become increasingly popular and what better way to test a gardener’s abilities than to make them cultivate a meal. You can find supplies for anything, from new “apple tree kits” to grow an entire apple tree to unusual seeds for heirloom vegetables and avocados to the new “Grow” kits for ingredients for cocktails, salsas and pizza. Also, some kits allow you to grow outside of your garden if you do not want to risk experimenting in your own garden.
Another growing trend is pollinator gardens. These are gardens specifically designed to boost the populations of “pollinator species” such as butterflies, bees and birds. Research what plants are best, though a handy guide is to look for flowers and plants native to your area, as well as plants such as fennel, butterfly weed and pollen-heavy sunflowers. There are other gifts you can include in their garden to boost populations, such as puddlers for butterflies, bees and birds to drink water.
Classes
And finally, if you cannot think of any physical gifts to give your gardener friend, you can always give the gift of information. Cary’s Garden Supply Co. holds multiple classes every month on topics such as how to make a terrarium, how to build handmade containers and how to care for small “fairy gardens.”
Instead of a gift, you can buy registration for a class and let your friend go and decide for themselves what they want to do with their green thumb.
Story by staff reports. Photos by Hal Goodtree. The Gardening column is sponsored by Garden Supply Company on Old Apex Road in Cary.
Thanks for this- as all gardeners know- we LOVE working in our gardens and seeing the fruits of our labor pay off! Gardening is an act of faith – plant now and fingers crossed (with the right location and enough water) it will grow! If you are a transplant yourself – look at other people’s yards and at the JC Raulston Arboretum to see what will grow well in your garden! You may love a plant from ” back home” , but you can waste a lot of time, work and money on keeping something alive that just doesn’t like our heat, humidity and droughts! I xeriscape – plant ’em – coddle and add extra water for two years, then they have to survive on their own! Except for my needy children (my roses) – everything else is survival of the fittest! And remember – friends don’t let friends buy annuals! Give them seeds instead! and share your perennial divisions.
A few other items could be a rain barrel, a gift certificate, drip irrigation hoses and systems or a “homemade” coupon for simple sharpening some of those old, but well loved gardening tools- they work so much better when they are sharp or firmly in their handle!
One other thing, the rose gloves should be ” gauntlet” style- to have protection further up your forearms.
Enjoy the beauty of nature- a gift for you!