Great Garden Gifts - A Guide

Buying garden gifts for the gardeners in your life? Relax, we play in dirt, we’re pretty easy to please.

Budget-minded Garden Gifts

Homemade coupons are great gifts for the weary gardener, especially the older they are. Gardening is hard work and help is always appreciated! Be specific to what your gift is – a morning of weeding, a load of compost and help unloading it, sharpening garden tools, carrying rocks, building a new raised bed, etc.

Bird feeders, baths and houses are also great garden gifts. Gardeners love to share their gardens with birds. Many go above and beyond to cater to the needs of their feathery friends. These can be home-made or very expensive so they fit every budget.

Gloves are great garden gifts, every year! Gardeners need a variety of gloves, heavy duty leather, thin leather, fabric, specialty (like the long sleeve leather for those who love roses). After a season of wear in dirt, water, and rocks we usually need to replace most pairs every year. Better the gloves than our hands! See my list of garden gloves that every gardener should have. (Coming soon)

OXO Garden Trowel This is one of my favorite tools. It’s large enough to scoop potting soil, so I use it to plant my pots as well as my veggie garden. It’s very comfortable in the hands for extended use in the garden. It has a serrated edge that is great for cutting twine off a straw bale, cutting down plant material, or cutting open bags of soil and mulch. I also use it to weed by scraping the weeds right out of the soil with ease. I’ve had this trowel for years and it still looks new – amazing since I’m very hard on my tools. Amazon also lists this tool under different item numbers B00023DIHM and B00008IHSM but they appear to be the same one to me.

Books always make great garden gifts! Very few gardeners can resist a good garden book. Whether it’s a picture book to browse on a cold winter day or a book of instruction to reference while gardening, we never seem to have enough. Here are a few great ones. Come back soon to see a list of my favorite garden books.

The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques

The Organic Garden (A practical guide to natural gardens, from planning and planting to harvesting and maintenance)

The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals

Mid-Range Garden Gifts

A Felco Hand Pruner #2 is a must for every gardener. The leather belt holder is very useful too and helps protect your investment.

Wellies - only the best muck boots for slipping on to run to the compost bin in any weather, and tramping through the spring rains or deep snow. You can find them at Smith & Hawken.

A good worm bin to compost kitchen scraps even in the freezing temps of winter.

Magazine Subscription – See My Favorite Magazines

Higher-Range Garden Gifts

A good compost tumbler

A nice cedar bench to relax and enjoy your garden is especially nice. Two sources - Amazon and Smith & Hawken, where right now they're on sale and shipping is free.