Are you ready for this? Friday marks the unofficial beginning of
the holiday shopping frenzy. There are actually people who get up
at 5 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving to take advantage of the Early
Shopper Specials. The merchants love them.
Are you ready for this? Friday marks the unofficial beginning of the holiday shopping frenzy. There are actually people who get up at 5 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving to take advantage of the Early Shopper Specials. The merchants love them.
If you’d like to do some holiday shopping this weekend but want to avoid the hordes, let me share a secret with you. Go visit a nursery. Or a garden center. Or, at least, the garden department at Home Depot, Orchard Supply Hardware, Kmart, or any other store that fits your schedule.
You will find the aisles absolutely abandoned. No pushing, no shoving, and lots of good holiday gifts just waiting to be scooped up and carted home. For instance:
* Potted plants are abundant and most of them can go into the garden in spring. My favorite is the tangerine tree with little fruit already forming on the branches. But other citrus – orange, grapefruit, whatever – make welcome gifts that will continue to grow and produce for many years.
* Gardenia bushes with their magical scented flowers can survive outdoors in a container or in the ground. There are many similar plants ranging from daphne to camellias that will give many years of pleasure.
* If you can get past the plants, there are many other good bets as stocking stuffers or gifts from the kids. Garden gloves, for instance, are always welcome because gloves in the garden are like socks in the clothes dryer. One is always missing. While the expensive gloves may catch your eye, pick up instead a couple of pairs of the less expensive ones for $3 or $4 each. The inexpensive, lightweight gloves are the ones people tend to use the most – and don’t mind getting muddy or torn.
* Tools, of course, are hard to resist. Try real hard to ignore the high-end gas-guzzling, noisy tools, which are tough on both the user and the environment. Instead, consider useful hand tools.such as well-made clippers, folding pruning saw, hand cultivator, or trowel. A new rake may not sound very romantic, but a new rake will be lovingly used long after the awful ties and ghastly bath powder are gone.
* The seed rack contains a wealth of gift ideas. If your giftee is a flower gardener, for instance, pick through a selection of seeds for wildflowers, sweet peas, calendulas and any others that catch your fancy. Another idea for those seeds: Slip a package of sweet peas into Christmas cards to special friends and add a note “Think of me when these bloom.” They will bloom and your friends will, indeed, think of you.
* Bulbs in kits are another “think of me when these bloom” type of gift and they seldom cost more than $5 or $6. Hyacinths, paperwhites, crocuses and amaryllis are sure bets to grow and bloom when started from a kit. You will want a few for yourself as well as gifts for others.
* Vegetables, herbs and flowers in four-inch pots can be combined for theme gifts. An example: pots of oregano, parsley, tarragon and basil combined with a cookbook featuring Italian dishes.
* Whimseys are everywhere in the garden shop. My favorites include a rain guage; an outdoor thermometer to keep track of hot and cold days; small bird houses; wind chimes in bamboo, glass or brass (the louder the better), wind socks to hang from the front porch; plant stakes, and of course, an American flag.
And here you thought you had to fight your way through the mess at the mall.
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A Reader Wants to Know: I have a poinsettia that is still growing from last Christmas. It’s a really nice green plant but I don’t see any red bracts on it. Is there a fertilizer I can use to get the red flowers?
– J. Wallace, Hollister
Joan Says: There is no fertilizer that will bring your poinsettia back into bloom. The only way to get a potted poinsettia to bloom is to start treating it to darkness way back in September. Some people plant their poinsettias outdoors and get flowers the next year, bu this is pretty much a hit-and-miss thing. Enjoy your poinsettia as a green plant. If you want red flowers this Christmas, you will need to buy a new one.
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Tip of the Week: Plant azaleas, camellias, forsythias, dogwoods and Oriental magnolias so they will settle in nicely before the soil is thoroughly chilled. Renew acid mulches under azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons. Water them well to make sure they don’t dry out from winter sun and winds. Twist off excess buds on camellias for fewer but bigger blooms.
