Last minute Christmas gifts for the gardener — shop locally

Any­time of the year is a time for gar­den­ers to dream of being out­side, despite the howl­ing wind and cold tem­per­a­tures. This year, remem­ber the gar­dener in your life with a hol­i­day gift just for them. Below are some ideas that might make gar­den­ing eas­ier and more pro­duc­tive for your favorite gardener.

Pur­chase a mag­a­zine sub­scrip­tion for Ohio Gar­dener, which focuses on Ohio gar­dens, land­scapes and tech­niques for Zone 5. Some of the arti­cles are writ­ten by OSU per­son­nel and local authors. Visit them at ohgardener.com or call 888–265-3600. Edi­ble Colum­bus is another great mag­a­zine, fea­tur­ing sto­ries about Ohio local food, farm­ers and mar­kets. You can see them at ediblecolumbus.com or pick up a free issue at local retail stores, the list is on their web­site. Both of these make great stock­ing stuffers.

Bee­hive Books has the lat­est gar­den­ing mag­a­zines and books. Cook­books, gar­den­ing and nature all make fun choices. The Locavore’s Kitchen is the newest book out by Mar­ilou Suszko. She will be one of the keynote speak­ers at Green Thumbs gar­den­ers fair in March. A nice vari­ety of gift items are avail­able through­out the store. After you fin­ish up at Bee­hive walk through the arch­way to Global Vil­lage. They carry items from around the world. You can spend a great deal of time in the store read­ing where all the mer­chan­dise came from. Choose from purses, scarves, orna­ments, cloth­ing and more unique trea­sures. They also carry Fair Trade cof­fee and other food items.

Oak­land Nurs­ery has a won­der­ful selec­tion of gar­den prod­ucts this time of year. A walk through the shop will pro­vide a ton of ideas for that gar­dener on your list. From gloves to trow­els, books, gar­den inspired jew­elry and lawn art is plen­ti­ful. They have a great selec­tion of gaz­ing balls, gar­den stakes, and ter­rar­i­ums. You can pur­chase indoor bloomers, such as amaryl­lis and paper­whites, so your gar­dener can watch some­thing bloom­ing in these dull dreary months of win­ter. Gar­den chimes are espe­cially nice this time of year for the lovely sound they pro­vide on the windy win­ter days. A bird feeder will attract the wildlife to your yard. There’s noth­ing bet­ter than watch­ing all the hun­gry birds gath­ered around your feeder in the snow.

Antique stores are also a good place to walk through for hol­i­day gift ideas. There are lots of items that can be recy­cled for use as gar­den art. Take the seat out of an old chair and replace it with a beau­ti­ful plant. Paint an old lad­der a bright color and place your bird­houses on the steps. Old dishes, vases and bowls can be turned into a cre­ative gar­den stake. Have fun when you walk through our great selec­tion of antique stores in Delaware County.

Buy a gift mem­ber­ship to an Ohio based hor­ti­cul­ture soci­ety or orga­ni­za­tion. As a sug­ges­tion, the Amer­i­can Com­mu­nity Gar­den Asso­ci­a­tion (ACGA), head­quar­tered at the Franklin Park Con­ser­va­tory. Visit: communitygarden.org or fpconservatory.com for details. For the “her­bie” on your list, con­sider a mem­ber­ship to the Herb Soci­ety of Amer­ica located in Kirt­land, Ohio. Visit them at herbsociety.org for infor­ma­tion. Other orga­ni­za­tions with local chap­ters are the Rose Soci­ety, Hosta Soci­ety and Daylily Society.

Mail order seeds are a good idea for stock­ing stuffers. Sug­ges­tions are; Burpee Seeds burpee.com, White Flower Farm whiteflowerfarm.com, Totally Toma­toes totallytomato.com, Ital­ian Seeds italianseedandtool.com, and Seed Savers at seedsavers.com, just to name a few of my favorites.

Gift cer­tifi­cates are always a nice idea, if you can’t decide what you want to get. You can pur­chase some of these online, mak­ing shop­ping as sim­ple as sit­ting at your desk. Help sup­port Delaware County with some of these ideas.

The OSU Exten­sion, Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­den­ers wish each and every one of you a Happy Hol­i­day and a won­der­ful, healthy and reward­ing New Year.

Susan Leichty is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gard­ner volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Dec 17 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.