Gardening gift ideas

Low cost and mid-range presents for garden and nature lovers

This week I thought I’d create a short list of present ideas with a garden or nature theme. I’ve managed to keep them to relatively low-cost gifts.

1) Fröväxt vase, £3 each from Ikea

I’ve been on the lookout for vases or eggcups with minimalist faces for a year or so because I wanted to use our Tillandsia air plants as hair. I wanted to better present our air plants in a fun way. When I turned a corner in Ikea and saw these little guys I snaffled them up at the speed of light. At a mere £3 each, Fröväxt terracotta minimal vases are well made, with a happy face on one side and a sad face on the other. I can now communicate my mood with plants. You can use them as small vases for cut flowers or as an air plant holder like me. Air plants not included! Of course, you may also pick something similar up from a charity shop.

2) Vouchers for seeds or plant nurseries

Special Plants near Bath run by Derry Watkins

I know vouchers are seen as a zero effort present but seriously, as a gardener there is nothing I value more than the funds to choose the plants I want to grow next year. It’s through winter I browse the seed and plant sites for the year ahead making it the perfect time to voucher me up. You can show you’ve put thought into it by choosing vouchers from a quality nursery or seed company. Find your local wildflower seed and plug nursery, most counties have them. One of our nearest is Heritage Wildflowers in West Yorkshire, for instance. For contemporary ornamental plants I usually start my browsing with Beth Chatto, Claire Austin, Wildegoose, Special Plants, Crüg Farm, Blue Bell Cottage.

3) A slipper orchid

I would usually avoid buying an avid gardener plants because they will almost certainly have specific plants they want to grow. However if you really want to, slipper orchids are particularly beautiful and rarely sold in mainstream shops. Elite Orchids recently came recommended to me by grower Kev’s Orchids.

4) A night away to visit an amazing garden

The Jungle Moat at Walmer Castle, Kent

Adventure awaits! Why not treat that gardener in your life to a night or weekend in a hotel, B&B or holiday home for a night or two near a garden they’ve always wanted to visit? It could be somewhere further afield, such as Cluny House Gardens in Scotland, Scampston Hall near the coast of East Yorkshire, Nant-Y-Bedd in Wales and Walmer Castle Gardens on a shingle beach in Kent. Or even to one of the above specialist nurseries, they are all well worth a visit!

5) Membership to a local Wildlife Trust

Globeflowers at a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve

Normally I’d be WTF to someone donating to a charity on my behalf as a present (no disrespect to charities as I donate all the time, but as a present for someone else?) However the one I would love is membership to my local Wildlife Trust. As a member you receive a guide to every reserve in the area allowing you to plan visits to each one across the year to see all manner of different wildflowers and wildlife, and the membership fee goes toward managing that land for us to enjoy. Contemporary gardening is all about understanding wildlife and nature, with wildlife reserves the best place to start. RSPB and Woodland Trust are also good nature reserve custodians.

6) Betakut Italian secateurs

Now, I love my Niwaki secateurs and I begrudgingly like my Felco 2 secateurs, you can’t go wrong with these. But last year I went on the hunt for something local and discovered the super stylish Betakut Italian made secateurs. No one ever writes about these but I absolutely love them. Available in 18cm, 21cm and 23cm lengths. I have medium sized hands about would go for 21cm. If you have big hands, you’ll love 23cm. A gardener can never have too many good tools so no one is going to turn their noses up at a new pair of posh secateurs.

7) Garden or nature related story books

I was recently asked which gardening books I’m reading and I had to confess my answer was “none”. As an experienced gardener I’ve read millions of books on every gardening topic making it rare these days for a book to offer something new. However, I do love stories, be they fiction or non-fiction, and I love stories grounded in gardens or nature.

One of my favourites is Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, a complex love story around the creation of a garden. Ghost Mountain by Ronan Héssión is a short book about a natural spot people keep coming back to. Flesh by David Szalay is nothing to do with gardens or nature - it’s about human mortality and understanding the male protagonist - and yet gardens kept playing their part. Seascraper by Benjamin Wood isn’t set in a garden but the way the central character revisits the beach, it strikes me is like revisiting a garden each day, it is his garden and the location of this short story that I enjoyed.

I recently read Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton which is a story that never leaves the garden in which the author cares for a baby hare. Alice Vincent has explored female experiences in her recent books including Hark: How Women Listen, fundamentally about the people she meets but always orbiting nature and gardens. In Land Beneath the Waves author Nic Wilson lays bare here chronic illness and how nature has helped her manage it. Garden writer Alys Fowler recently started back at University to study the subject of her new book Peatlands, an impassioned tome of evidence for their importance.

8) Wildlife kit

Somewhat ironic that equipment to study or help wildlife is among the most expensive on this list but I thought I’d mention it. Moth traps are one of the easiest tools for viewing wildlife but are extortionately expensive for what is effectively a large bucket with a special light bulb. Still, they last for ages and allow you to track species of moths in your garden over the years. A simple bird or bat box from the RSPB is cheaper and would make a lovely present for someone to watch birds nesting next year. If your budget can stretch, bird boxes with a wildlife camera in are endlessly fascinating, though they are very expensive.

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I hope that offers some thoughtful gift ideas for the tricky gardener in your life. Without wanting to overly plug my own wares, I also have my own books, art prints and seed packets for sale on my online shop. Paid Wild Way subscribers receive 20% off everything. You can also give someone an annual subscription to Wild Way here.

Here’s to a joyful winter period of celebrations - only two weeks until the most important date for gardens at this time of year, the Winter Solstice. From 21st December daylight starts growing longer and plants begin slowly waking up. Until then I will hibernating with a good book...

This week’s garden design guide lesson…