THERE are ways to simplify — making holiday meals joint efforts, for example, and targeting gifts to recipients’ specific interests.
Gardeners are an easy lot to buy for. Garden centres, and gift stores geared to gardening make it simple to quickly find perfect presents in a happily large range of prices.
Here are some gift ideas for indoor and outdoor gardeners:
PLANTS. Among the dazzling displays of potted plants, choose a hostess or other gift suited to conditions in its prospective home.
Keep in mind that azalea, cyclamen and chrysanthemum need cool room temperatures along with bright light for a decent bloom period.
SEEDS excite gardeners looking forward keenly to the upcoming growing season. Seed collections of heritage tomatoes, gourmet greens and cut flowers are popular.
SEED SAVING KITS provide storage containers envelopes, markers and more for organizing seeds for saving from one year to the next.
HERB KITS include everything needed to grow a collection of culinary herbs indoors on a bright windowsill.
LITESTICK is a small battery-operated light that is inserted into a pot to provide supplemental light to herbs and other plants during the winter months. Dig This has this item.
HERB SCISSORS have multiple blades that make cutting up herbs a snap. A new and innovative product.
TIME LAPSE CAMERAS. These devices enhance appreciation of garden life. Plant Cam automatically takes photos and videos at set time intervals, to create a seamless display of plants growing and coming into bloom. Bird Cam can be set to respond to motion or to take photos or video at specific times.
BOOKS. We are fortunate in having access to books by local authors writing with our West Coast climate in mind. Linda Gilkeson’s Year-Around Harvest, Carolyn Herriot’s Zero Mile Diet and Steve Solomon’s Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades (6th edition) all focus on homegrown food.
BIRD FEEDERS abound in many interesting and ornamental designs. Some allow access only to small birds and exclude larger birds and animals. I cherish the painted glass hummingbird feeder I was given last Christmas.
