Gift Idea's for your Favorite Gardener

12/08/11
Newsletter Topics

#1 - Tips of the Week

#3 - Rose Certificates and Gift Cards

#2 - Plants of the Week

#4 - Christmas traditions

Gift Idea's for your favorite gardener

The number one hobby of the majority of homeowners is gardening. Buying a gardening type gift for a homeowner should be well received. The range of garden gifts can range from a $5.00 gift card for a new perennial which will be available in the spring to a full blown new landscape design that includes installation which could be installed next spring. And of course there are many other choices in between.

Here are some garden gift suggestions I would like to make that will make for a large gift to a stocking stuffer. Let’s start with a great gift for first time homeowners. Start with a wheel barrow. Then fill it with as much as you want to spend. Great fillers would include scissor type hand pruners, set of hand tools, a long handled shovel, spade, a leaf rake, garden gloves, rain gauge, and a gardening book showing plants that grow well in this area.

Stocking Stuffers

Some of the above items will also make great stocking stuffers. Added suggestions include a bird feeder (large stocking), advance tickets for the Cincinnati Home and Garden show, a membership to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden or the Civic Garden Center, and a gift certificate filled out for any gardening purpose.

Give a Living Plant

Speaking of gift certificates, they can be used to give that special gardener hardy plants that can be acquired in the spring at the recipient’s convenience. Great plants to give include Knock Out roses. Choose any the seven varieties including the new yellow Knock Out variety– Sunny Knock Out. Other great plants to give through gift certificates include a shade or flowering tree, an Endless Summer Hydrangea, or any of the newer shrub varieties. You could ask the nursery center that issues the gift certificate to furnish you with an empty 3 gallon nursery pot to put the certificate in and then wrap it and place it under the tree instead of putting it in the stocking.

Gifts for a Couple of Special Groups of People

First time homeowners would love to have a landscape consultation with a designer who can tell them what is right and what is wrong with the existing landscape and what possibilities exist to improve their landscape. A letter from the designer you’ve chosen can introduce themselves to the gift recipients. They then can pick a convenient time to meet before the spring rush.

Gifts for the Children

Many of the same adult yard tools are available in children’s sizes. There are also garden gloves and gardening shoes or boots. Seed starting kits are a great gift for kids to enjoy during the bleak winter months. It’s never too soon to get younger members of the family interested in gardening. It can be a gift that lasts the child’s entire life.

Shopping for gardening gifts couldn’t be easier. Gardening is very popular with any homeowner so it only makes sense that as you make out your gift list for family and friends, think green. Here are some suggestions and the approximate price category of each suggestion.

$10 or less

These gifts would be great for stocking stuffers or purchase several of them and create a gardening gift basket.

• Rain gauge or a Water Wand - proper watering is crucial to the health of lawn and plants.

• Potted herbs and small 4” potted tropical plants – a great way to brighten up a kitchen in the winter with a planter in your windowsill, not to mention fresh herbs readily available for cooking.

• Garden gloves, garden hat, or apron – gardening is a dirty but fun activity so every gardener would appreciate some of these items.

• Hand trowel – a tool needed for planting colorful annuals or perennials next spring.

• Hand held spreader – good for spreading fertilizer and weed seed control.

• Small potted Poinsettia or Christmas Cactus – these seasonal plants will provide interior living color this time of year.

$25 or less

• Knock Out Rose (certificate) – choose from several colors Red, Double Red, Pink, Double Pink, Rainbow, Blushing, or Sunny. Or let the gift recipient pick the color of their choice. Discounts may be available as well.

• Bird Feeder - this is the best way to attract birds to a landscape for the winter. With a good pair of binoculars and a field guide to local birds, learn all about those strangers in the yard.

• Seed Starter Kits – A great way to save money and get started earlier. This is for those green thumbs who just can’t wait to get started.

• Wind Chimes, Garden Stepping Stones – you’ll find a great selection of some really beautiful and creative chimes and stones. Choose one to match the personality of your favorite gardener.

• Watering Tools - hose water timers and hose drip system will make life easier, ensuring lawns/plants get the right amount of water needed to keep them healthy.

• Pruning shears – a really good quality pair of pruners are a gardener’s best friend. There’s no other tool that will get more use. And a clean cut is important to a plant’s health.

• Gardening Books or Gardening Magazine Subscriptions – make sure you get a book that caters to our unique region, soil and climate. An illustrated gardening book for children could nurture a child into learning more about gardening and also create a fun activity for the whole family to do together.

$100 or less

• Gift Certificates - in any denomination to help with an upcoming new landscape project or landscape maintenance for a friend or relative that you see is in need of some sprucing up.

• Memorial Trees/Shrubs – most garden stores are open year round. Purchase a tree or plant certificate. A living memorial in honor of a loved one is a special way to remember or celebrate a person’s life.

• Professional Landscape Consultation – A good way to plan ahead, by talking to a landscape professional over the winter to ensure a place in the front of the line for a spring project. Purchase a Landscape consultation as a gift (call for details). They say the early bird gets the worm you know.

• Membership in a Civic Garden Center – just by making a donation you can become a member and get book borrowing privileges, 10% discount cards to area garden stores, quarterly newsletters and advance notice of special events.

• Back Saving Gardening Tools – There are several gifts you can purchase that would make gardening more enjoyable and less strenuous such as an electric leaf blower, a lawn edger or trimmer or how about a good wheel barrow.