Gifts for the gardener this Christmas

NORTH FLORIDA — Christmas is on its way and it’s time to buy those gifts. If there is a gardener on your gift list, consider a gardening gift.

There are all sorts of gift ideas for a gardener and the price range varies as well.

A subscription to a garden magazine may be just the idea that your gardener will enjoy throughout the year. Look for those published in Florida or at least in the Southeast.

You might consider a horticulture book. There are many from which to choose, including those written by local authors. Check with your favorite bookstore and see if it includes a section on local writers.

The University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Extension Bookstore has numerous for sale books, posters, DVDs and more.

Florida’s Edible Wild Plants is a 154-page book fully illustrated with photos and drawings to assist with the identification of many of Florida’s edible plants. It includes a cookbook section with recipes and an important chapter on what not to eat.

The popular Your Florida Landscape: A Complete Guide to Planting and Maintenance is a 234-page book packed full of information on landscape plants, common pests as well as beneficial insects.

View and order items online at this website. http://ifasbooks.ifas.ufl.edu

While there check out the section on “Books for $1,” “Logo Products” and “Pollinators & Native Plants.”

What about a gift certificate to a botanical garden such as Bellingrath Gardens or Callaway Gardens?

You could make a gift basket. Be creative. Place small gardening tools such as hand pruners, a garden trowel, gardening gloves, seed packets, seed catalogs or other such items in a basket or five-gallon bucket (always handy for gardeners).

Enclose with colored cellophane wrap, tie with ribbon and there you go – a nice gift.

There are more expensive items such as garden carts, benches or decorative garden art for the landscape.

What about a birdhouse, bat house, birdbath or birdfeeder?

You might look for a unique gift such as a mushroom kit containing everything needed to grow fresh edible mushrooms.

A decorative stepping stone, outdoor thermometer, a pack of weatherproof plant labels or a bug vacuum might be the gift of choice. You haven’t heard about the bug vacuum? I have one. It was a gift. It’s used to vacuum small insects off of indoor plants or to sample for insects.

Oh, and I haven’t mentioned gift plants.

Your imagination is the limit when picking out a gift for a gardener. Your gift may be expensive, inexpensive, handmade, purchased from a store… I’ve been told it’s the thought that counts.

Larry Williams is the Extension horticulture agent with the Okaloosa County Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida. Contact Larry at 689-5850 or email lwilliams@myokaloosa.com.