Gifts that make holidays happy for gardeners
One of the easiest and best holiday gifts for gardeners are gift certificates to their favorite nursery. You determine the value, and the gardener decides on the ultimate gift.
Allowing gardeners to select one or more items from a nursery can be fun for them and is the most likely way the gifts will fit into the gardeners’ landscape plans and scheduling. Coping with a gift of new plants, even if you will want them eventually, can be inconvenient if they arrive at the wrong time in terms of a gardener’s schedule or the best horticultural schedule.
A gift certificate could be made out for the value that would cover the cost of a certified butterfly garden or for the value of one of the several plans in books such as “Butterfly Gardening For The South” by Geyata Ajilvsgi. Link it closely to the monarch butterfly initiative by including native milkweeds in the plan.
Such a gift would require some effort on your part and the cooperation of the nursery, but it would make a great gift with long-term returns.
If butterflies are your gardener’s favorite topic or she would just appreciate more information on the subject, consider the guides “Butterflies of North America” by Jim Brock and Kenn Kaufman or “Caterpillars in the Field and Garden” by T. Allen, J. Brock and J. Glassberg as a gift. If your gardener has the caterpillar guide, he or she will be one of the few who can identify the
creatures.
Presents related to attracting birds to a landscape are usually popular with gardeners, especially when they address an issue the gardener has in his or her landscape. A great gift is an Absolute Brand Bird Feeder. They feature metal construction and adjustable weight-sensitive perches that can help deny access to squirrels and even white-winged doves in favor of smaller birds.
A book on gardening and attracting birds to the landscape is “Attracting Birds to Southern Gardens” authored by Thomas Pope, Neil Odenwald
and Charles Fryling Jr. It discusses cover, seed eaters, insect eaters and nesting.
If you want your gift certificate to be related to birds, how about working with Wild Birds Unlimited on a certificate adequate to purchase a purple martin house? To learn more, your gardener can attend one of the classes on the topic at the San Antonio Botanical Society or Wild Birds Unlimited.
Also appreciated by gardeners are gardening tools. Hand tools are always useful gifts for experienced gardeners, but a set of tools for a young gardener just launching his or her hobby would be especially appreciated. Some of the new electric chain saws, mowers and tillers for raised beds are reasonably priced, work well and are in tune with environmental concerns. How about an outdoor battery-fueled hand-held vacuum tool for sucking up lace and stink bugs on tomatoes in the garden?
Is your gardener getting prepared to launch a demanding landscape project? If so, consider the book “Home Landscaping Texas” by Greg Grant and Roger Holmes. In addition to good horticultural information, the book is organized by the pieces of a landscape project to reduce the tendency of large home landscaping projects to overwhelm the gardener.
Two other outstanding resource books to consider as gifts are “Perennial Garden Color” by William Welch and “Native Texas Plants” by Sally and Andy Wasowski.