Xmas gift ideas for garden lovers..

by Alan Titchmarsh

The art of making Christmas shopping fun is avoiding the usual frantic last-minute rush, and if you prefer doing the entire job from the comfort of your armchair it pays to start early to allow for delivery time, so you aren’t a nervous wreck come Christmas Eve. Oh, it gets harder each year to come up with novel yet affordable ideas, but when you are choosing gifts for garden lovers there’s no end to the imagination you can bring to bear.

Practical presents look like being big hits this year. The big growth area right now is self-sufficiency, so anything to do with growing-your-own and using garden produce is full of potential for gifts. Think about handsome kilner jars or fancy flip-top bottles (popular for home-made herbal oils and vinegars), or perhaps specialist equipment for making jams or jellies and preserving or pickling; the very latest must-have is a smoker (available from posh kitchen shops).

A proper fruit press would be brilliant for anyone with productive apple trees, for making fresh fruit juices and cider.

Books are a great stand-by and apart from gardening topics there are all sorts of books covering garden-related spin-offs, from beekeeping and poultry husbandry to natural dying using plant colourings, or foraging – and how to use wild-collected fungi, hedgerow fruits and ‘weeds’ creatively. (My own new book ‘The Complete Countryman’ – BBC Books, £25), might come in handy here!) And now that insects have taken off as the last word in garden wildlife you might also consider a good identification guide – or a magnifying glass.

All sorts of gardening charts, guides, calendars and diaries are available from the catalogues of gardening charities such as the RHS, and from seed firms (the organic ones have particularly novel ranges that are great as gifts).

When in doubt you can always plump for a gift voucher from a seed firm; most garden centres and some specialist nurseries also offer them. It might sound like a cop-out, but they’re a great way to let friends treat themselves to something they’d never splash out on otherwise.

For folk who enjoy spending time eating and living outside in the garden, check out camping shops for wind-up radios, wind-up lanterns and little lamps with LED lights that run on small batteries, all of which can be used in the garden in summer, the summerhouse when its wet or windy – and when camping or caravanning.

A good picnic rug, wicker picnic hamper or pair of folding chairs would make a good gift for people who enjoy going garden visiting; these and other bright – even quirky – ideas are easily found in National Trust gift shops. (Which are so much more civilised than bashing your way round a packed high street or sitting with your head in your computer shopping online).

If you’re planning a party for gardening chums, or you happen to be in charge of organising the Christmas ‘do’ for the gardening circle when small gifts are required, then consider putting a lucky dip together.

It’s a great way to make more of really small inexpensive items that every hands-on gardener will appreciate, such as plant labels, packets of seeds, plant-pot covers, hanks of raffia or balls of gardening string, gardening gloves, tube of barrier cream, max-min thermometer, dibber, flower-snips and such like, plus one or two larger pricier items as ‘star prizes’ perhaps secateurs, a stainless steel trowel or the latest new gardening book. Wrap them up prettily and immerse in a tub of polystyrene balls or Christmas wrapping paper that you’ve fed through a paper-shredder, and let everyone pitch in.  It’s all part of the fun.