A Holiday Gifting Guide for Gardeners

With the holidays and gift-giving time just around the corner, my desk is piled high with ideas for your favorite gardeners. This year, I’ll reach a bit beyond the usual tools and books, which I hope will inspire your desire to be a giver, as well as a pleaser.

A few weeks ago, I saw some potted plants at one of my garden center haunts and for several reasons I think these are great to have around for the holidays. They’re what we call the florist’s cyclamen — or Cyclamen persicum — and while the flowers resemble the cyclamen in our outdoor gardens, these are frost tender.

There’s a lot to like about this plant. It forms a low crown of attractive heart-shaped foliage with wiry stems that rise above the foliage, presenting single and double flowers in white, pink, red, purple and several variations.

The plants I bought were in 4-inch pots and, while they were tight, I’m resisting bumping them up to a larger size. The downside is that they need watering every day to every other day, as the roots suck up every drop of water offered. Forget to water them for a day and they droop, but within hours of watering, they perk right back up. Be careful, though, because the flowers and foliage emerge from a corm, similar to a flat bulb, and it will rot if allowed to sit in standing water.

The plants grow best in bright, indirect light. The big plus is that unlike most of our houseplants, these cyclamen prefer to grow on the cool side, between 50 and 65 degrees. This gives us lots more latitude as far as where we can grow them in the house. Our living room temperature — where my own plants are — rarely gets over 66 degrees at night. To the side of the west-facing window, it goes down to 60, and they’re perfectly happy and thriving.

At $8 each, these Canadian-grown plants really are gems to have around for the holidays. They’ll bloom into the winter before they go into dormancy. You can store the corms and rebloom them, but few do this, as they are pretty much considered to be one of our disposable houseplants. But for holiday color in cool spaces, they’re hard to pass up.

Every night I sleep with plants, or in a garden — sheets and pillowcases, that is. L.L. Bean has a line of sheets, pillowcases and comforter covers inspired by nature, and when I first saw them in the catalog, I knew I wanted a set. I’ve been sleeping on “birch floral” ever since.

Have a gardener in mind who might like to sleep on birch floral, botanical floral, wildflower print or blueberry print? In addition to the sheets, you can get each motif in a comforter cover, as well. These are wonderful 220-count cotton sheets that keep that garden image in the bedroom year-round. You can find them on the L.L. Bean website in the bedding section.

There are many new gardening books out that you may want to gift, or get yourself for the holidays, and I’ll begin with “Vibrant Harvest” by Sandra Mao, available December 2. I’d usually shy away from a book like this because it deals with both the aesthetics of vegetable gardening, as well as the specific details for growing 42 types of veggies that will bring not only great tasting vegetables to your table, but also vibrant colors to liven up what otherwise could be a dull and hidden plot.

This book really made me think twice about vegetable gardening, as most of these gardens are hidden away from public view. But the colors and schemes the author suggests made me think that at least the idea of a color-rich and aesthetically well-planned vegetable garden is truly something for the Hamptons.

There is the practical side of vegetable gardening, also, with advice on choosing the right plants, planning this new garden, the care of it, harvesting and then on to picking and preserving the produce.

This is not to be confused with a book that is meant for East End gardeners. The information is fairly generic and doesn’t get into topics like soils, insects and diseases in the veggie garden — only a single chart for each — but this is all available in other texts and from other sources. Simply, this book is about how to make your veggie garden look as great as the produce will taste — from tiny purple Brussels sprouts and rainbow-colored heads of cauliflower to peppers of various shapes and colors, purple beans, yellow beans and speckled beans.

And for container growers, the colors and textures are extended into various materials, including terracotta, metal, wood, plastic and woven baskets. There are also suggestions for supports and stakes, as these can be quite distracting and ugly.

The photographs are, as you might expect, vibrant and inspiring. As I first opened the book, a full-page picture of various vegetables growing on a gravel patio and in containers caught my attention. But as my eye was drawn to the back of the picture, I noticed a tree growing in front of a home with these familiar, yet also unfamiliar, fruits hanging from the branches. The fruits almost look like perfectly ripe, red apples, except they weren’t exactly apple shaped.

These were ripe pomegranates — and it was the first time I’d seen them anywhere other than the grocery store. An awakening indeed. And while we can’t grow pomegranates on the East End, there are just so many ideas and pictures that I think gardeners who seek to elevate their vegetable gardens will find this book both inspiring and informative. I have to agree completely with the last line in the book’s press release: “Her mission is to empower new growers to embrace edible gardening with joy, resilience and a splash of color.” It truly does.

There’s also one very practical gift that I mention every year: A Felco #2, #4 or #8 pruner. While they are similar, the most popular is the #2. The #4, while less expensive, does not have the handy gears that the #2 has. Shop for the best price, as tariffs on these have driven up the prices by nearly 40 percent. These pruners are well made and will last until you wear them out, if you can.

Unlike other pruners, you can get replacement parts easily and, being Swiss made, they can last for years, or a lifetime. There’s also an 80th anniversary edition of the #2 for $130, but it doesn’t have the classic red handle that makes this pruner easy to find when dropped. If you are left-handed, the #9, #16, #10 and #17 are for you.

Keep growing.

Garden Notes

There will be no tariffs on Christmas trees from Canada, as they are exempt, and they should show up around Thanksgiving. One of my favorite seed companies recently sent me some promotional material touting the great taste of four of their new tomato varieties. Over the years, readers of this column and gardeners I talk to all lament how they long for that great, old-fashioned taste that we seem to remember from the tomatoes of earlier years. What’s your experience been? If you grow a great tomato with exceptional flavor, I’d like to hear from you. Drop me a note, please, and tell me about it: andrew@hamptongardener.com.

We’re in the last few weeks to get your spring flowering bulbs planted. No more procrastination. Check your lawn and gardens for the soil pH. Granulated limestone added to the soil now will make the necessary adjustments by springtime planting. Clean up the fallen plant debris in your veggie garden and around your roses. No rose pruning, though, and no feeding. Either remove the leaves from your lawn or run them over with a mulching mower.