Looking for some gifts that the gardener in your life will love and actually use? These are some of my “favorite things” for gardening. Don’t be surprised if you end up choosing a few things for yourself from this list too!
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I have a love/hate relationship with online shopping. While sometimes you need to see things in person to find inspiration for a project or gift buying, it’s almost automatic for me to jump online rather than heading to the store.
Amazon Prime in particular has been at my beck and call ever since I was pregnant with my son. I’ll admit, sometimes it’s almost too easy to order things, but this time of year I’m eternally grateful for how easy it is to get my Christmas shopping done without setting foot in a crowded store with two small children in tow.
If you have a gardener in your life, or are looking to leave hints for what you might like for yourself, here is a list of some of my favorite gardening gifts. If you’re tired of hinting around for what you’d like, you have my permission to just buy whatever it is for yourself already!
My trusty Felco F-9 left-handed pruners
Pruners— You can’t go wrong with a good set of pruners. Hands-down, the best pruners I know of are Felco brand pruners. They come in different sizes, and as a left-handed gardener, I appreciate that they even come in a left-handed version. You can also get replacement parts for your trusty Felcos, which is not true of many pruners on the market.
Quality Tools— Generally speaking you get what you pay for as far as gardening tools. Unfortunately, most tools are not made “like they used to be”. I have a potato fork that belonged to my grandma that is probably over 50 years old, maybe over 75 years old. I oil it on occasion and probably should refinish the handle, but it is a workhorse.
Contrast that with some of the newer tools we had in our collection that couldn’t handle hitting a rock at the wrong angle without bending or breaking. Look for tools that are made from high-quality metal with solid wood or fiberglass handles. Lifetime guarantees are a plus. As much as I hate spending the money up front, it really is worth it.
One of my favorite recent purchases is this cultivator with a short handle designed for raised beds. You might not think of garden hoses as tools but I bought this compact coil hose and it looks just as good now as the day we bought it over a year ago. We tried less expensive hoses and they all leaked within weeks after their first use. I’ve also become a believer in using higher quality watering wands, for the same reason. The less expensive ones just didn’t hold up. I did finally manage to work my Dramm water wand to death, and the company gladly replaced it under their lifetime warranty.
Sized Gloves— I was never a glove-wearing gardener until I bought sized gloves after my husband insisted on it. I always bought the unisex $5 gloves that I left on the ground minutes into a given gardening task. One day my husband nagged me into buying these *gasp* $25 gloves that were sized for women’s hands. Game changer. They fit perfectly and I didn’t have the ragged permadirt hands I usually had all summer.
Aerogarden— I don’t own one of these myself but I sure do want one (hint-hint). I used Aerogardens with different clients over the years as an Extension educator; this is one garden gadget that really does work. They are self-contained hydroponic (no soil) growing systems that even include appropriate lighting for plant growth. They come in compact sizes to accommodate limited space as well as the Aerogarden farm that you can monitor via a smartphone. If you want to grow herbs in your kitchen, forget trying to grow a bunch of sickly looking plants on your windowsill and get an Aerogarden.
Even when the rest of the world doesn’t know what to think– plants get me.
Garden Socks?— I found these Blue Q socks while looking for something else on Amazon. (Isn’t that what always happens?!) They have a wide range of socks and other products with sayings for everyone on your list, not just gardeners. I may have purchased a pair for a friend to wear to boring meetings. I will let you guess which ones I chose.
Worm Bin— I’ve had an outdoor compost bin since before it was trendy to have one. Using worms for composting, or vermicomposting, was something that I became fascinated with during my years in Extension. DIY vermicomposting systems using various plastic tubs are a great way to get started, but I find the commercial systems are way easier to maintain.
My husband insisted for years that he didn’t want any worm composting at our house for fear of bad smells. No matter how much I assured him it wouldn’t smell he dug his heels in, insisting it would. I had an opportunity to acquire a “worm factory” and quietly put it in our garage and went about using it. My husband didn’t notice for five months! When he finally saw it and I told him it had been there for months he was speechless. It really is a lifesaver during the winter months when my compost bin is either full, frozen, or I don’t want to venture outside. As an added bonus my kids love it and it gets them engaged in the garden from a different point on the circle of life. The bin I have is pretty basic and plain but there are some really cute ones out there too.
Nothing fancy about my garden tool bucket, but it works.
Tool Organization— I’ve been gifted different garden tool organizers over the years. Some required a lot of attention to putting things back in exact locations (in other words, nothing got put away!), and some were just too pretty to even think of filling with dirty tools. The best solution I have found is a set of pockets that fits around a standard five-gallon bucket. It’s not fancy, it’s functional and it’s not a multitude of extra steps to put things away at the end of the day. Just throw it in the bucket. Done.
Wire Cart— Our garage got an overhaul this spring. I needed a way to contain my pot collection other than stacks in every corner. The solution that has worked well and given me a moveable workspace is this cart designed for a kitchen. I purged my pot collection to fit on the cart and now I know at a glance what I have to work with when I need to pot up a plant.
Orchid Myst— I mentioned this product in a previous post on orchids, and I can’t say enough good things about Orchid Myst. Honestly, I don’t like that I don’t know exactly what is in it. But I’m overlooking that because it has made an incredible difference in my orchids. I brought my nine Phalaenopsis orchids inside shortly before Halloween, later than usual thanks to a combination of an unusually warm Fall and my own forgetfulness. By Thanksgiving I noticed that eight out of nine orchids are sending out flower spikes. I’ve never had flowering this consistent and uniform before I used Orchid Myst. This is my second year using the product and I had similar results last year as well.
These shelves have let me give more plants the opportunity to enjoy my sunniest windows!
Houseplant Shelves— I’ve had these shelves for nearly a year and they have not budged since I first put them up. I find that pretty impressive for a shelf that is just sticking to the window with a couple of suction cups. They’ve helped me maximize my available windows with good light.
Plant-filtered Fish Tank— In all honesty, I bought this fish tank just to see if it would work. I had my doubts. It worked like a charm. I will say I did not grow herbs or flowers or anything really interesting in the planting area, because I didn’t have enough available light. I planted wheat berries— wheat seed that people serve as a cooked grain or sprout for juicing wheatgrass. It would grow and eventually peter out and I would clean out the little cups and start all over gain with fresh seeds. The water for the beta in the tank was very clear– even my husband, who rolls his eyes at all my “experiments” was impressed.
Back to the Roots, the company that manufactures this fish tank, makes a host of other cool garden products. I’ve also tried their mushroom growing kit and it grew delicious mushrooms with really not much effort. Definitely a good choice for a busy gardener.
Gardener’s Hollow Leg— Have you ever found yourself doing a “little” weeding or deadheading and before you know it, you’re far from whatever pile or container you were using to collect your weeds and trimmings? I found this product years ago at the Philadelphia Flower Show and it is one of the handiest items in my garden tools.
I’m sure there’s more favorite garden tools in your shed that didn’t make my list. Feel free to share them in the comments or drop me a line at jen@groundedandgrowing.co! I’m always interested in finding new “must-haves” for the garden!
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All Rights Reserved. © 2017 Jennifer Schultz Nelson
Love these “gift” ideas…But, since I’m the only dedicated gardener in my family (I’m working on that, another story), I saw many things I want, for me!
I think I’ll start with the window shelf. I always wondered how well they would stay put, thanks for sharing that information.
Also, the socks are great! I did receive a pair from a friend and I wear them when I need to be reminded that life it too short to takes things so seriously. These would be a great gift to give anyone, and something people seldom buy for themselves.
Thanks Beth, I’m glad you found some ideas for yourself on my list! And yes, life is indeed way too short. That truth is one of the many reasons I started this blog. Thanks for reading!