Exciting Gift Ideas for the Avid Gardener in Your Life
Check Out This Extensive List of Ideas for Birthday Gifts and Christmas Presents!
Are you searching for the perfect gift for your favorite gardening enthusiast? Here are some fun and practical gifts that will help your beloved gardener cultivate a successful garden.
Tools
To get you started, here’s a list of great tool ideas for gardeners. Gardeners love:
- Hori hori
- Seeding tools
- Nitrile-palmed gloves
- Buckets and bags to organize tools
- Small wheelbarrows
- Kneeling pads and seats
- Broadforks
Differences in Quality Among Various Tools
Japanese and Italian steel-bladed tools are renowned for their high-quality. They are beautiful, ergonomic, and durable.
Wooden handles are gorgeous, but often break down faster than plastic-handled tools. It is always worth investing in a higher quality tool that can last generations rather than a cheaper, less durable one.
Besides cutting and aerating tools, watering cans, rain barrels, and drip irrigation systems might be on your gardener’s wish list. If your gardener has a small container garden, a watering can might be sufficient. Rain barrels, downspout diverters, and hoses are also helpful for small gardens. But check to see if your state and municipality allow them. Drip irrigation and wicking supplies usually work better for large gardens and dry land garden systems.
Supplies
Seeds, plant markers, pots and trays, heating mats, and grow lights extend capacity in the garden and are sure to be appreciated. Plant markers are great, especially reusable ones for seed starting and annuals. Metal markers are more durable and are useful with perennials. They can help your gardener remember which seed was planted where! Lights can help the gardener through the winter and early spring. Look for low energy lights to grow under.
Why not give your gardener unusual varieties and heirloom seeds? There are exciting discoveries and beautiful plant varieties found each year. Remember to check zone and light requirements for your gardener.
Soils and soil amendments might not be exciting to some gardeners, but there are a range of them to include in a fine gardening practice. Seaweeds and foliar feeds may be new to your gardener and helpful in creating beautiful, healthy plants in the summer. Seed starting soil blends along with trays, heat mats, seeds, and a grow light might be the perfect package gift. Why not put them together in a harvest basket?
Besides these, a small greenhouse or wrap (also called a fleece) might be perfect for starting seeds or protecting a Garden Tower.
Books, Calendars, and Apps
Every gardener should have access to information. Here are some great books to give to your gardener.
- Thomas J. Elpel’s, Botany in a Day is a great little book and its just as fun as his children’s book: Shanleya’s Quest: A Botany Adventure for Kids Ages 9 to 99.
- Suzanne Ashworth’s Seed to Seed is a great primer on seed saving, care, and starting.
- Eliot Coleman’s The New Organic Grower and The Winter Harvest Handbook are two classics that hold a wealth of information and help both the gardener and market farmer plan for the coming year.
- For those interested in permaculture, Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden is a great book for beginners.
- Peter Bane’s The Permaculture Handbook is a dense and practical approach to suburban permaculture practice. (Truth be told, Peter Bane has been a mentor and colleague for the past ten years.)
- Rosemary Morrow’s Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture is also full of practical approaches to permaculture design.
- Maria Thun’s Gardening for Life: The Biodynamic Way is a classic, although esoteric, introduction to this particular approach to gardening.
Every gardener needs access to a calendar. Many people swear by the Farmer’s Almanac. The land grant university in your state probably has an online calendar or a planting guide accessible through their extension office. For instance, the University of Missouri offers informational calendars and gardening journals help gardeners plan, observe, and record the garden’s yearly activities.
Apps for planting are designed to help you figure out when to plant and to help you choose plants that will suit your garden space. Apps can even help you imagine what your designed space will look like through the season. You could give your gardener a gift certificate for the app store to round out a gift.
Remember, gardening not only produces beauty and food, but health and well-being within a gardening friend. What better gift could you give someone?