Gifts for the Gardener in Your Life, 2024

With turkey day now behind us it’s time to get ready for the gifting season. And what will you be giving your favorite gardener(s) for the holidays? Will it be books, plants, seeds, tools or maybe that greenhouse your intended has always dreamed of?

When it comes to plants as gifts, it’s always a hard call. If your gardener is experienced or has a special collection it makes it even more difficult, but there are some options that give you a great deal of leeway. When it comes to tropical or houseplants you really can’t beat Logee’s Plants (logees.com). Logee’s has a vast catalog of plants for indoors (tropical) as well as greenhouses, including a good selection of tropical fruits. And while it may be difficult for you to figure out what your intended wants or needs, it’s easy and appreciated when a Logee’s gift certificate is given. With their vast inventory they have plants that will delight the beginner as well as the accomplished indoor grower, and with this vast inventory it’s a great place to shop (and spend) for plant collections and rare plants that you won’t find at any local garden center.

For those outdoor growers it’s hard to go wrong with a gift certificate from White Flower Farm (whiteflowerfarm.com). Yes, they are expensive, and sometimes it’s hard to justify the price based on the size of the plants you get. However, WFF has such a large reach and presence in the horticulture world that there are plants that can be purchased from them that often don’t show up at local garden centers for several years after their introduction.

For the perennial lovers on your gift list, I have two gift certificate suggestions. For the largest selection of perennials there’s Edelweiss Perennials on the West Coast (edelweissperennials.com). Just go to the opening page of their website, and on the top-right side you’ll see a “gift certificate” tab. It’s actually a small operation, and they tend to ship small plants (that are not overpriced) but they have a plant list that’s second to none when it comes to perennials. From the most common to varieties sought by collectors and newbies I’m always blown away by what they have to offer. Even though they are thousands of miles away, shipping has never been a problem, and the plants always arrive in great shape.

A second perennial nursery is Plant Delights (plantdelights.com) down in North Carolina. Owned by world-renowned plantsman Tony Advent, Plant Delights has a plant list that contains many of the newer varieties and hybrids that you may not find elsewhere. Unlike Edelweiss, Plant Delights also has a catalog that will come with or shortly after you order your gift certificate. You might think that hardiness would be a problem with plants coming from down south, but they are actually high enough in the mountains that they are very close to eastern Long Island’s hardiness zone. On their home page just type “gift” in the search box, and the gift certificate options will pop up. I suggest the digital version for instant gratification and easy giving.

For the gardener that likes to read about new plants and old as well as great gardening design, plant disease and insect issues you and your giftee can’t go wrong with a subscription to the Connecticut Gardener (conngardener.com). You can give the gift of a digital edition of their magazine, the print edition or both. Their articles are second to none and written and photographed by the top people in the horticulture world leaning heavily toward perennials, trees and shrubs. And yes, the material is totally appropriate to eastern Long Island as you may have noticed that Connecticut is just slightly to our west. Published by a husband-and-wife team for nearly 30 years they are both great writers and have very high standards for content from others.

Now if you want to send your giftee on a horticultural trip there’s gardentours.com. Donna Dawson is the tour operator and has been doing this for years with trips for gardeners all over the world with all-inclusive packages. This year she’s got a trip planned for the Chelsea Garden Show, a cruise to the British Isles and west coast of Ireland, a landscape and garden tour of Rome, Tivoli and the Castelli Romani as well as an early summer trip to Kent, Sussex and Surry’s gardens as well as a late summer trip to the same areas. Just looking at her offerings almost makes me want to travel again, but I just can’t leave the garden.

A bit closer to home, how about some tickets to the Philadelphia Flower Show? You can buy admission tickets here tinyurl.com/v8b569y, but you have to buy tickets in advance for particular dates. The show runs March 1 to 9, and it’s just an easy train ride or drive down. If you’ve never been to this show or Chelsea, you and or your giftee will just be blown away. While it can be done in a day it’s tiring looking at all the plants and indoor landscapes, so you may want to suggest an overnight. This is the oldest and largest garden show in the world, and it will certainly result in great memories and ideas that can be brought back to the garden.

For the gardener who needs to know how the weather is and how it’s affecting their garden there’s nothing like a weather station in your backyard. Those $20 thermometers that just tell us the temperature and humidity are pretty useless. We need and like to know what the wind is doing, how much it rained, what the soil temperature is and much more. If you or your giftee can live without knowing the soil moisture or temperature the Tempest Weather System (around $300) available on Amazon and from Tempest (tinyurl.com/5c586zkz) is a small unit that gets mounted on a pole, preferably in the garden. Set up can take as little as 10 to 20 minutes. The system will report to your cellphone and is always accessible as long as it can transmit to its small base station with an internet connection. It maintains all the historical data, does forecasts, wind, rain, solar radiation, humidity and more. Once set up it requires no further input and it runs on an internal solar charged battery.

For the gardener who needs a bit more sophistication than the Tempest offers, Ambient Weather has the WS-5000, which I’ve also had in trials now for three years. Being modular, this station does everything the Tempest does but also allows you to add a module for soil temperature, adding less than $30. The remote unit needs no power as it has a self-contained solar battery, and it transmits to a desktop display where nearly two dozen parameters are displayed in a active color monitor. If the cost isn’t a factor this is the unit I’d suggest for gardeners with the soil temp module. It needs to be pole mounted but is unobtrusive and works like a charm. A complete unit will run about $400 with the soil temperature probe. Available from Ambient Weather or Amazon, but I suggest Ambient for better customer support if you need it.

For the gardener who starts plants from seed there’s nothing quite like a small setup that includes a heating mat and grow lights. For about $100 you can get a set of 2-foot grow lights. Add a heating mat with a thermostat and a flat with a plastic dome and for under $200 you’ve got a complete seed starting set. Most local garden centers have these kits.

How about a book? One that came across my desk a few months ago is “Tiny + Wild: Build a Small-Scale Meadow Anywhere” by Graham Laird Gardner (Cold Spring Press, 2023). How can you possibly go wrong with a book authored by a man whose last name is “Gardener”? Even better, as a Rhode Islander he seems to have a good handle on the needs of our coastal gardens and Northeast gardening. I’ve really been down on this meadow garden craze, but this book is great since the author concentrates on smaller meadow gardens, which are much better suited for our smaller gardens. Great pictures, well-thought-out information and excellent guidance for small property owners who still have meadows on their minds.

And for the totally practical there are my favorite plant labels from Paw Paw (everlastlabel.com). I’ve used hundreds and hundreds of their 12-inch hairpin-style labels that have a writing space of about 1 inch by 3 inches. With long legs, they can be pushed deep into the ground. You can write on the labels with a #2 pencil, and the writing won’t wear off or fade. They are also available in a copper label though I find the galvanized type will last five to 10 years. If it’s only the gardener who will be reading the labels a pencil (#2 lead only for permanence) will do, but I’m now using a Brother P-touch label maker with laminated labels. These labels last forever on the name plate and don’t smudge, get dirty or fade.

Lastly, for the gardener who has everything except a greenhouse, there’s a greenhouse. You’ll need very deep pockets for this one as just a small, quality greenhouse 8 feet wide and 10 to 12 feet long with plumbing, heating and concrete sidewalls and footings will start around $20,000. And that’s just to put it up. Add the heating and electrical costs and your talking additional annual expenses of $5,000 or more. Also keep in mind that once you have a greenhouse there will be no more vacations. They don’t take care of themselves.

But if you’ve got the bucks and a gardener who is willing to maintain the structure and plants I can tell you from personal experience that there is nothing, nothing, like walking into a warm humid greenhouse on a cold winter day or night. And I sooo want one outside the kitchen. Not in this life. But I loved the opportunity to manage greenhouses of those who had very, very deep pockets. Keep growing.