Gift suggestions for gardeners

CORVALLIS, Ore. – If you have a gardener on your gift list this holiday season, you're in luck. Garden accessories are popular items in many stores and nurseries. Here are 38 gift suggestions for your green-thumbed family and friends.

• Gardener’s journal to record planting dates, varieties, successes from year to year;
• Gift certificate for 'x' hours of help in the yard;
• Hand soaps and creams designed especially for extra dirty, chapped hands;
• Colorful and interesting flower pots;
• Leather gardening gloves to prevent injury and chapped, rough skin;
• Flexible, rubberized cotton gloves that keep fingernails clean and hands dry;
• Water timer for hose-fed sprinklers for carefree watering;
• Bouquets and wreaths of dried flowers;
• High-quality pruning saw to make winter pruning a pleasure;
• Easy grip or smaller hand tools for gardeners with arthritis;
• Worm compost bin to recycle kitchen waste;
• Small, beautiful vases to display single blossoms;
• Long spouted water pot for easy house-plant care;
• Ever-sharp garden scissors for snipping herbs and flowers;
• Hand-woven basket with a handle for gathering herbs and vegetables;
• Large garden cart to carry tools and soil amendments to the garden in one trip;
• Knee-pads or gardening stool to make weeding and low work less of a strain;
• Metal supports for tall spring tulips and later to support tomato plants;
• Permanent tags to mark the sites of your perennials and bulbs or rows in next spring’s vegetable patch;
• Seed sower to easily set tiny seeds into soil at exactly the proper interval;
• A heavy apron with pockets to keep gardening tools handy or a caddy with pockets for your garden bucket;
• Pocket-size thermometer to measure soil temperature, vital for spring planting;
• Small soil home testing kit to test for plant nutrients essential for growth;
• Long-handled bulb planter to make digging small deep holes for bulbs a cinch;
• Gardening books;
• "Trees to Know in Oregon" from OSU Extension, $18 plus shipping and handling:;
• Bulbs to plant in bowls and vases for early indoor bloom;
• Gift certificate for plants or tools from a favorite nursery;
• Children’s gardening tools to encourage young folks to start gardening;
• Presents for wildlife such as bird feeders or baths, or even bat houses;
• A check to pay for online OSU Master Gardener training;
• OR a gift of money to attend the next master gardener training in your county;
• Fingernail brush (and perhaps a garden-scented soap);
• Small compost container for under or on top of the counter;
• Stationery kit of blank paper, floral or garden rubber stamps, and embossing powder;
• Garden or nature related notecards;
• Aluminum plant tags (write on them with a pencil) to hang or attach to woody plants;
• Just for fun: the new OSU publication on worm composting, free of charge online.