Posted by gzfreezeadmin on February 10, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Gardening Gift Idea: Buying a holiday gift or holiday gift basket for a gardener.
Pleasant Holidays – The words means different things to everyone, the holidays are a season of giving, pleasant holidays for a gardener means a holiday gift basket filled with things a gardener loves. You could fill your holiday gift basket with a gardening tool or gardening accessory, gift certificates for seed companies and gardening centers, or subscriptions to gardening magazines.Giving a holiday gift basket like this might seem mundane to you – but to the gardener enthusiast, it will be a treat! For great ideas for your holiday gift basket from Christmas and Easter, to New Year’s (or even birthdays, etc.) to spur your imagination and aid in your search for the ideal gardening gift, read on…1. Gift CertificateFind a gardening holilday gift and gardening gift certificate online. Many customers have found the gift certificate a unique present for gardening friends and relatives. Click on the amount of gift certificate you want to order, and enter the recipients name in the shipping address field on the order form. There is no shipping charge for gift certificates.2. SeedsWhat gardener wouldn’t love a holiday gift basket containing money to purchase all the seeds his or her heart desires? A purchase from Brooklyn Botanic Garden not only delights the recipient but also gives again by supporting BBG’s education, science, and community programs, as well as the Garden itself. The wide array of unique treats in BBG’s Garden Gift Shop complements a garden lifestyle and will bring joy to anyone on your list!
3. Personalized Garden Stakes
It’s a beautiful accent to any garden, garden stakes are a perfect way to mark that special tree, rosebush, or pet memorial. These sassy stakes provide reminders – gentle or not so gentle – for your plants to keep on growing, while their colors help you remember what’s planted where. Personalize them with names, dates or special message. Your gardener friends will love the encouragement!4. Plants- Plants as Presents or CommemorationsWarning: Regulations and restrictions may apply to sale and/or movement of seeds, plants, plant material (living or dead), potting media or soil, even locally. Please check with appropriate authorities.New Gardeners: A plant you know is easy to grow (avoid specialist plants like bonsai, orchids, cacti)Housewarming: Fruit tree, Extra-special feature tree (suitable for the size of garden), Topiary, Plant chosen to suit decor of new home (Mediterranean, Tropical, Traditional, and/or colour scheme etc).
Apartment-warming: Indoor plant, Balcony plant (suitable for balcony conditions), Herbs in pots.Birth, Birthday, Christening, Naming Ceremony: Shrub with same name as recipient or other meaningful name, Feature tree.Anniversary: Named variety or type of plant for year (gold, silver, emerald, etc. )Commemoration: Favourite plant, flowers in favourite colours, flowers/foliage in club, national, state etc colours, floral emblem of country, state, association, plant native to region of birth, any beautiful tree planted as a feature (provided it is suitable for the location on a practical level), plant with same name or other meaningful name.5. Garden Ornaments
Over the years we have seen that certain items would come up and be requested to be sent out as gift items more often than others. As a result, there are a variety of ornaments designed for garden decoration, they has become more popular home décor products that would make lovely garden gifts and home accents for anybody, which will complement the gardener’s home and garden décor setup.6. A Pair of Foxgloves
Foxgloves make for great home décor garden gifts. This product has been featured in over 17 major magazines proving that they are the ultimate in home décor garden gifts. A pair of gloves were developed with comfort and durability in mind in the gardening environment. Constructed out of contemporary fabrics such as lycra and supplex nylon, foxgloves give the feel and sensitivity of 1950 style dress gloves, but are built to last. Now foxgloves are available in original style or grip style. These comfortable glove products are resistant to abrasion and fit snugly on one’s hand to protect fingers, nails, and cuticles.7. Special CosmeticsAnother popular choice for garden gift ideas would be a cosmetic for skin protection. You can find an extensive supply of Burt’s Bees products ranging from carrot complexion soap to foot cream to carrot nutritive lotion in many Garden shops. For, example, A carrot complexion soap is blended with aloe vera and beta-carotene to clean the pores, improve the skin tone and color and aid in the rejuvenation of mature sun-exposed skin, and a piece of foot cream product is a lightweight moisturizer that is fortified with vitamin E and beta-carotene that is also conducive for healing and soothing sun-exposed skin. As for our carrot nutritive lotion, this product is a lightweight moisturize enriched with vitamin E and beta-carotene.8. Gardening Tools
How about a well-engineered gardening tool? At the other end of the spectrum, you could pay to have their lawns for mowed for them for a year!and there is a wide selection of garden tools and gardening related items that would make wonderful gifts for your friends, loved ones and co-workers, such as bulb planter, cultivator, carrying case, trowel, transplanter, 3-prong fork, digging fork, hose fittings, foam kneeler, pruner, hose nozzle, weeder/cultivator, all these choices are great for the green thumb in your life.9. Garden Accessory such as a bird house, bird seed, bird feeder, bird bath, gazing ball, and “welcome to my garden” signs, garden statues.Last, if you are near the downtown for the holidays, be sure to check out their wonderful train display, upside-down hanging tree, and other special holiday events and attractions running from late November to January 7th.* Garden Gifts for Distant FriendsFollowing are gifts which are easy to send:- gift vouchers with a garden centre close to your friend- subscription to magazine or club- books, videos, DVDs, CD Roms- clothing, gloves- hand tools- donation to horticultural or environmental charity- almost any item by mail order- have it sent directly from the supplier to your friend with your friend’s permission.Make it clear to the vendor that you’re paying for the goods and give your contact details also in case there’s a problem with the order. There may be restrictions on movement of plant material or other items to certain areas – check first!Gardening gifts may be a good option for those hard-to-buy-for men in your life. If you’re stumped for present for Father’s Day, a brother’s birthday, or your husband at Christmas, whichever gardening gift you include in your holiday gift basket for the gardening enthusiast, be sure they will prefer it above a tie, socks, or a fruit cake! I hope these holiday gift ideas will help you select the perfect gardening gift for the gardener on your list!
Filed under Gardening · Tagged with Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Different Things, Education Science, Enthusiasts, Even Birthdays, Garden Gift Shop, Garden Stakes, Gardener, Gardening, Gardening Magazines, Gardening Tool, Gift, Gift Certificates, Holiday, Holiday Gift Basket, Holiday Gift Idea, Idea, List, Pet Memorial, Pleasant Holidays, Reminders, Rosebush, S Education, Seed Companies, Shipping Address Field, Shipping Charge
Posted by gzfreezeadmin on February 9, 2010 · Leave a Comment
In Today’s throwaway society, there is absolutely no need to go out and purchase mulch material for your garden, unless it is for the particular aesthetic appearance, “The Look”, sake of the mulch material.
Were you aware that there are a number of mulching materials that you can obtain from around your own community that are free, and some of which can even be even delivered to you for nothing as well.
Impossible you might say. Well I mulch my gardens fairly heavily, and I never pay a cent for the mulch material. As a matter of fact, most of the mulch is willingly delivered to my home for nothing. As the former owners are only too glad to see the back of it, as it would cost them money, time and effort to find other ways of getting rid of it.
I also combine these outside sources of mulch with my own compost, weeds and other organic matter mixed through to achieve a great result in my garden, and so all that it costs me is time and effort.
So what am I talking about? While some of the below list is delivered free, other items I pick up myself, depending on time, circumstances, importance etc.
Grass Clippings from other people in the area or from lawn-mowing contractors.
Wood shavings from local wood turners and carvers, ( Do not use shavings from treated timber).
Small amounts of solid fill from friends who are excavating. This is to assist in raising garden beds, in my heavy clay soil.
Light prunings from shrubs which is shredded by me or put whole into garden
Heavier sticks and logs, which are turned into trellis, garden stakes, garden edges, seats, frames, log planters etc. while they slowly decay.
Newspaper, cardboard, non-rubber carpet underlay, and even carpet and carpet squares. Which is put under other mulch to prevent grass and weed regrowth
Animal manures sometimes mixed with straw from places like Racetracks and Showgrounds, Pony Clubs, Stables etc. I contact them well beforehand to see if any is available.
To this I also add my own weeds, throwing away some which can still be a potential problem, or burying them below the bottom most layer of mulch material to stop them regrowing.
Another item I add is any old potting mix from deceased plants or when repotting plants.
Being a fairly lazy gardener, I throw the material around a bit at a time, as they are available, and let nature mix them for me. On a couple of occasions I have received a bit too much wood shavings so these became path material between some of the garden beds, with a heavy underlay of newspapers. People even tell me that it looks and feels good underfoot.
Never put a large amount of fresh animal manure on any garden, as it will burn any plant around it. Be extremely sparing or let it age first for a few months before applying it to the garden.
I have been living in my new house for about fifteen months, and the mulch layer in all my gardens (there were no gardens originally), is about 10 cm or 4 inches deep. None of which I have paid for and little that I have had to even pick up for myself.
People are even starting to comment on how fast the plants in my gardens are growing in the local heavy black clay soils, and they are surprised when I tell them that I have never bothered to fertilise the plants. The reason for this is that the earliest laid mulch material, is now broken down into plant nutrients and is now feeding my plants as a plant nutrient soup aided by the soil life which has suddenly started appearing in my gardens.
Another benefit that has started to appear in the last few months is the arrival of insect eating wildlife into my garden. Predatory insects and birds are now visiting my gardens on a regular basis, where I saw none this time last year. Bees and butterflies are also starting to visit many of the plants, which have come into flower for the first time this year.
So what can you do to start locating your own supplies of free mulch material, well here are a number of suggestions.
Put a little sign near your gate, something along the lines of ‘Organic mulch required’, or ‘Lawn clipping wanted’. There are sure to be a number of local people who are currently throwing theirs away in your community or even local area. Never mulch solely with grass clippings as they form an impenetrable layer that air and water cannot get through. Always mix it with other things to stop it ‘thatching’, just like a roof over the soil.
See if you can get into contact with local people who are into woodturning and carving, or even local sawmills. And come to some arrangement about unpreserved wood shavings.
Check the local phonebook for local showgrounds/racetracks/stables etc, to find out if any have stable or manure waste to give away, for people willing to pick them up
In other words, start talking around the place that you are after mulch materials and they will soon start coming to you.
The only caution with using other peoples waste material is the chance that you might also import other peoples pests and weeds. I have rarely found it a problem because of heavy mulch on mulch routines. But it is possible.
One point being that when you first start applying mulch to your garden you may see some nitrogen deficiencies occur in some plants. This is because the organisms that are breaking down the mulch material are using up all the available resources of it during the initial breakdown. Once you have gotten past this time the old composted material provide more than enough nitrogen for future processes.
Another thing to be careful of is not to bury or mulch up against the stems of wanted plants, as it may cause further problems for your plants in rot problems around the collar of the stems.
So get out there and talk around the community, find the contacts, believe it or not they will be as grateful as you to solve their particular problems of waste reduction. As well as that, you may start making some new friendships out of the deal; I know I have.
Filed under Gardening · Tagged with Aesthetic Appearance, Carpet Squares, Clay Soil, Compost, Feed, Free, Garden Beds, Garden Edges, Garden Stakes, Gardens, Grass Clippings, Lawn Mowing, Money Time, Mulch, Mulch Material, Organic Matter, Pony Clubs, Racetracks, Thr, Throwaway Society, Weeds, Wood Carvers, Wood Shavings, Wood Turners