Gifts for the Gardener
HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR THE GARDENER IN YOUR LIFE
by Mari Stuart
It’s the coldest and gloomiest time of the year. Surely gardeners are taking a break from thinking about their gardens?
Wrong. Winter is when gardeners dream, plan, place seed orders, and sharpen and update their tools. During the growing season, we’re far too busy to do any of those things! Just about every enthusiastic gardener I know has a near-sacred moment in the middle of the winter when they collect the seed catalogs and sit down to plan what they’ll be growing in the coming season. I find myself carrying home new gardening books and poring over them precisely in the winter – there’s finally time.
So the winter holidays are a great time to give the gardener in your life something that will inspire them or make their gardening routines easier when spring rolls around.
The garden hose sprayer:
We recently upgraded our garden hose sprayer to a Dramm adjustable nozzle and haven’t looked back. It’s made of brass, so it’s much more durable than plastic sprayers. Best of all, you can easily adjust the spray from diffuse to focused, and direct it to plants near or far.
pH test kit:
The garden’s rest time is also a good time to do soil tests so that you can plan necessary soil amendments before the growing season picks up. These handy pH strips allow you to check the soil pH in different parts of the garden. Soil pH makes an enormous difference for certain popular garden plants, like blueberries and azaleas.
Window hoe:
Japanese garden tools have a loyal following, and for a reason. This hand-held window hoe from Japan is a unique digging tool. It breaks up tough soil, but the window cut-out makes the hoe lighter, and also allows the soil to move freely through. This means a lot less physical strain. And trust me, any gardener will be grateful for less physical strain. Not to mention the craftsmanship is beautiful.
All of these gardening gifts and many more are available locally at Villagers!
About Mari Stuart:
Mari Stuart (PhD) is one of our regular instructors at Villagers! She teaches classes in Natural Dyeing, Cheese Making and more.
Mari is an ecological landscape designer, teacher, writer and urban homesteader, originally from Finland and now making a home in Asheville. Mari has taught urban homesteading and natural dyeing classes for several years, and co-facilitated the first Permaculture Design Course in the Midlands of South Carolina. She holds a PhD in Asian religions from Harvard University and taught at the college level for several years before transitioning to ecological design.