2018 Holiday Gift Guide

Matching gifts with people can be lots of fun. This year, we have your back and a dependable shopping list to match. 

This shopping list takes care of everyone’s needs. Each product is high quality, easy-to-use, or easy-to-grow. They will fit the needs of a beginner- gardener friend or master-gardener mother. No one will be left out.

So, cross a few people off your list with gifts that encourage outdoor activity and inspire time spent in nature.

Here is our curated a list of sustainable, useful, and thoughtful gifts:

Environmentally Friendly Tumbler

Why send kitchen leftovers to the landfill when they can be recycled directly in the garden? Accomplish two goals with one effort: get a gift and help the environment. Mantis’ Back Porch ComposTumbler is compact and mighty, turning kitchen and yard waste into high quality compost. Fruit and veggies will grow like never before.

Garden Strong and Confident

Centurion knows tools. Whether gifting these tools to a new gardener or giving them to a master gardener, Centurion tools are up for any task. 

The Centurion Garden and Outdoor Living Cutting Set ($30), a handy cutting tools set, includes a lopper, pruner, and hedge shears. Your loved one will be able to tackle any garden cutting project.

Berry Delightful

Delicious, nutritious, and stunning to look at, Bushel and Berry’s raspberries, blackberries, or blueberries provide fresh berries at your fingertips. 

They are a source of education for kids and a nutritious snack all in one. These berry bushes are suited for everyone, kids and adults, starter or expert. With nine varieties available, you will be spoiled for choice.

Cultivate Quality

Weed the garden at 6:00 AM with the quiet Mantis 58V Cordless Tiller/Cultivator. This battery-powered tiller does an excellent job weeding, reviving existing beds, and making new ones. It is a convenient 26 pounds, making it easy to move around and transport. Small, efficient, and easy to use, this tiller/cultivator makes an excellent gift for anyone who loves to garden.

Happy shopping!

Give the Gift of Year-Round Gardening

The season of gifting is here and it’s time to start planning that perfect gift for friends and family. This year, think outside the “box” with garden-themed presents that provide the gift of green joy year-round.

Worried that the people on your “nice” list have brown thumbs? No problem!  These gifts are perfect for anyone from beginner to expert gardener. Loved ones can decorate their spaces, live a healthier life and even reconnect with nature.

Home and garden retailers have something for every budget and every skill level. Here are a few ideas for the health-conscious, nature-loving, food enthusiast in your life:

GMG's Friday Find: Organic, Eco-Chic Planters for Holiday Gift Giving

Presents!  We love to give them, and let's be honest, we love to receive them.  Looking for the perfect holiday gift for your gardening friends? NativeCast has the perfect gift for everyone on your shopping list. And best of all, each product is individually hand-cast and comes complete with its own story.

Ricky Giacco, founder and visionary of NativeCast, developed a unique green concrete made of recycled materials and locally sourced seashells, pine cones and needles.  This concrete is used to cast containers from organic shapes, like mushroom board and crab apple bark.

GMG's Friday Find: Warm Winter Up with Amaryllis Bulbs

Amaryllis bulbs are exotic, mid-winter treasures that add a burst of color during the winter months to liven up your home or office.  These bulbs are becoming more popular as hostess gifts, teacher gifts and holiday gifts simply because they're beautiful and easy to grow.  And you can get creative with containers too.

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You can group several together in a decorative pot with moss, or even hollow out a pineapple and set some blooms inside.  Place the pineapple vase in a shallow serving dish with cranberries for a cool centerpiece.  To add sparkle and shine, whip some egg whites and brush lightly on the blooms, then sprinkle sugar on top.  When the sugar dries in about an hour, your amaryllis will be as festive as the holiday season. 

To plant your amaryllis bulb, choose a container that is snug and just slightly larger than the bulb, making certain that the container will drain after watered.  Put a couple inches of potting soil in the container, sit your bulb in, root side down and then fill with more soil covering 3/4 of the bulb. Make sure you keep your pot in a warm spot and water lightly to keep the soil slightly moist but not soggy. Amaryllis, like most plants, grow towards the sun so make sure to rotate your container to ensure that the stalks grow straight.

Half the fun is watching your amaryllis grow.  From the first sprout, to the buds, to the huge flowers, you can actually see it grow. Everyone can grow amaryllis, even brown thumbs!  Simple, elegant, and beautiful the amaryllis is the solution to holiday decorating and beyond. 

~Peggy
Garden Media Group

Gift Ideas for your favorite gardener under $25

Ho Ho Ho!

The bells are ringing and holiday singers are singing; lights are twinkling on storefronts and  homes and Christmas trees are riding high on cars. Shopper mania has arrived.

For those of you still looking for perfect gifts for gardeners, stop by your local garden center for inspiration and a wide selection of gifts that range from the practical to the sublime.

From edible ornaments $16, a personal garden journal $19.95 or gardening gloves $22, Terrain has garden gifts for the cool gardener in all of us.

Besides, with decorated trees, wreaths and garlands, and containers spilling with wintery foliage, garden centers are beautiful to visit- especially at this time of year!

Enjoy your holidays!

~Lynne

GMG

'Tis better to give than to Receive

Isn't that how the saying goes? 

There are so many ways to give back this holiday season.  Especially since, as the American Red Cross poll reports, Americans are more committed to giving than ever.  Despite being the 3rd season affected by the economy and unemployment, more than 70% of Americans plan to give about the same amount or more than they did last year. 

Ways you can help:

 Donate. Reconnect with the true spirit of the holidays and help those in need.  Whether it's clothes you and your family have outgrown, money to a local charity or canned goods to a food bank, a charitable donations goes a long way.  Visit Just Give for information on nearly 1.8 million charities.


Volunteer.
Add a new tradition to your holiday list: community service projects! Try distributing baked goods at a nursing home, visiting hospital patients, walking dogs at a local shelter or serving holiday meals at a soup kitchen.  It will make you and your family feel good and re-connect.  Make sure you check out the charity organizations before you start donating your time.

Buy local.
From reducing environmental impact to creating job, there are a multitude of reasons support your local retailers.  When grocery shopping or holiday shopping, it only takes a few seconds to look at the label.

Read more about going local here.  Now Go! Invest in your community!

Plant a Tree.
Restore an endangered forest, help fight climate change, improve drinking water, generate jobs; and all for $1. Plant a tree for everyone on your list.

Conscious Consuming.
And, if you still have things to check off that list, buy from companies who are also doing good!  See these 5 examples from Mashable.

Gift Idea for your favorite gardener UNDER $25!

"Twas the night before Christmas,
and boy was I miffed,
I still hadn't found
that one perfect gift!"

Don't let this happen to you! The Growers Exchange has great gardening gifts under $25, tasty herbs, beautiful bulbs, unique handmade artwork and more! 

And even better, they will gift wrap your hard goods for free! 

Visit The Growers Exchange for all your gardening needs!  Fox gloves, pots and delicious herbs!

Gift # 3 for the Gardener who is young at heart

Last Friday we released the Top 10 gifts for Gardeners Under $25.  

Two Green Thumbs

Today's gift idea is for the gardener who is young at heart; Fairy or Miniature gardening. Fairy gardening has doubled over the past few years, according to Janit of Two Green Thumbs. 

Ilona Gardens

Fairy Gardening.com describes the fairy garden as, 

"a miniature garden complete with structures and actual living plants.  It is designed to lure fairies and with them, good luck, to your home.  It’s a tiny space created and tended with love.  The design and components are limited only by your imagination and the fairies encourage you to be extra-creative in crafting the perfect abode."

The kits are easy to assemble and make the perfect present for anyone 4 to 104.  These “green places for small spaces” work well indoors or out and are a great conversation starter!  Start the conversation today!

Gift Idea # 1 for Your Favorite Gardener

On Friday we released the Top 10 gifts for Gardeners Under $25.

Gift idea #1 is small enough for a table-top display or large enough to be the dramatic focal point of any room. The Norfolk Island Pines tuck nicely into tight spaces in apartments, dorm rooms, patios or cozy corners. And, they come in a variety of sizes from 14 to 44 inches tall for a nice floor plant. 

“These living trees are affordable, eco-friendly ways to decorate and provide years of pleasure,” says Jose Smith, chief executive officer of Costa Farms, one of the nation’s leading nurseries. 

After the holidays, you can place the tree in a pretty pot to beautify your spaces and naturally refresh your indoor air. 

Read about other creative gift ideas and decorating tips with Costa Farms Norfolk Island Pine. (www.costafarms.com)

Forcing Spring for the Holidays

Every year my sister Judy tells me about her forced paper whites.

It's not that this is a new idea for me. I just haven't done it in years. In the past, it's been disappointing because the beautiful long narcissus always flopped over and looked messy. Or I buy the ingredients and never get around to it!

Not this year. Judy has discoverd that if you plant the pre-forced bulbs in long vases -- that you can pick up in various sizes and shapes at TJ Maxx for a song -- they will grow tall and peak their heads out the top. No flopping! All gorgeous and delicious.

Put them a top about 3" of colored glass you can get at a craft store, tie it with a big ribbon, and it makes a very dramatic effect.

If you only have a shorter container, Lloyd Traven of Peace Tree Farm, the "king of cool plants", swears by vodka. He says, "If you water them once with vodka, they will stay much shorter and sturdier----not kidding. Actual research."

Now the next step is to get these beauties delivered. One down. Seven to go. They're already sprouting roots!

Now Stacey and I are off to the Martha Stewart Show tomorrow with Lloyd decorating Martha's set for the holidays.

Happy Spring - a little early.

Suzi GMG

Halloween is Over. Time to Start Thinking of Holiday Spending!

It seems as soon as Halloween is over, Santa comes out! If this year's number of trick or treaters is any indication, it looks like the economy is turning around, and we might have some good news for which we can be thankful at Thanksgiving.

According to all reports, this holiday season is expected to be the best for retailers since 2007!

After a ho-hum 2009 and a disastrous 2008, holiday retail sales in the US are expected to increase 2.3% this year to $447.1 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.

The results look about the same in the UK, where sales are expected to be up 1.9%, according to a new study from Verdict Research reported in Garden International.

The report says "seasonal products and gardening items will be the main areas to push sales for DIY and gardening retailers. Eye-catching homewares ranges should provide an opportunity for gifting and entertainment."

So here are a few ideas from GMG:

Orchids are a luxury anyone can afford. Orchids from Costa Farms are easy to grow, last for months and make a great hostess gift or elegant holiday decorations.

Containers, statuary or fountains: A great gift for avid gardeners and homeowners, Campania offers a wide variety of garden “jewelry” to accessorize the garden. From classic planters, birdbaths, benches to dancing frogs, pigs, cats and dogs, just wrap them with a big red ribbon and put them under the tree.

Tools -- What gardener doesn't love a new tool in their stocking. The new titanium tipped tools from Centurion are as pretty as jewelry! This folding shovel seems a must for every mom's trunk!

So, this year, put something for your garden on your wish list.

Suzi

GMG

Best Holiday Gifts for the Homebody

The editors of Money Magazine did a search and compiled a list of goodies for the home that will "delight any nester, and won't cost you a fortune.

Orchids were one of the seven gifts they recommend. "Phalaenopsis orchids are elegant, bloom for over a month, and are the easiest of all orchids to grow," says horticulturist Steven Frowine, author of "Orchids for Dummies." For the best price, skip the florist and head straight for Home Depot ($17, Home Depot stores)."

Be sure to look for the Costa Farms tag.