Holiday Gifts: Landscape Gardeners
On Target, Useful, and Out of the Ordinary Gift Ideas
Meaningful, useful and out-of-the-ordinary holiday gifts for gardeners are hard to find. Here are four categories that fit the bill for landscape gardener holiday gifts.
Identify Needs
Winter holidays usually mean gift giving. How do you choose a useful, but out-of-the-ordinary gift for landscape gardeners on your list?
Most important of all, you, the giver, need to identify what would make life easier and more pleasant for the receiver. Secondly, name what aspect of landscape gardening your gift recipient enjoys best. Below are four categories that fit the bill for landscape gardeners on any holiday list.
Ideas and Suggestions
- Gift certificates, especially those for food-on-the-go and innovative tools, are always appreciated. It is always great to have some cards for food in work vehicles.
- Calendars and engagement books can form the basis of an organized and well-thought-out year. The Ecological Calendar and Ecological Calendar Engagement Books also provide for an insightful year for those in the northern hemisphere.
Designed and created by Chris Hardman, these timekeepers focus on the natural structure of the year. They highlight the primary divisions of the year - the four astronomical seasons – winter, spring, summer, and autumn.
Each season on the wall-size Ecological Calendar begins with either a solstice or equinox date on one of four 12" x 36" panels. The 2008 cycle starts on The Winter Solstice, and is illustrated with natural annual phenomena - moon phases, variations between tides, meteor showers and seasonal constellations. The bottom of each season panel shows ecological day names, and Gregorian days, dates, and months.
The Ecological Calendar Engagement Book is perfect for folks who need space to write down appointments and reminders. At 9-inches-tall and 7-inches-wide, the engagement book fits perfectly onto a desktop or into business luggage.
- Gardeners' hands and feet continually suffer and need comfort and repair. Earth Therapeutics makes a wide range of products that help.
Feet
Tea Tree Oil Cooling Foot Scrub provides antiseptic tea tree oil to deodorize and disinfect tired dirty feet; pumice granules, jojoba and apricot seeds provide true grit for getting feet clean; mint and wintergreen cool, invigorate and cause feet to feel wonderful.
Tea Tree Oil Foot Wash also contains antiseptic tea tree oil, but is less strong; orange blossoms and citrus make this footbath zing.
Tea Tree Oil Foot Repair Balm (also good on hands) is a perfect final addition. It hydrates and is quickly absorbed into skin without a greasy feel. Botanical extracts include the traditional soothers, Aloe Vera, and chamomile.
Hands
Green Tea Herbal Soap and Green Tea Herbal Wash provide gentle hand washes that clean and leave skin feeling revitalized and conditioned. It is mild enough for sensitive skin.
Gardener's Hand Repair is a skin barrier applied after each hand wash. The Shea butter base protects hands from harsh outdoor conditions while alpha-hydroxy acids also help minimize roughness and smooth the skin.
- Tired ears and frantic days may need active noise cancellation headphones to bring, to some extent, relaxing quiet. They are useful while operating power equipment or doing repetitious chores like weeding. These headphones are also advantageous for air travel and even drowning out noisy neighbors.
The headphones detect ambient noise before it gets to your ears. The noise-cancellation circuitry then turns the noise's sound wave upside down. Essentially, the noise-cancellation system adds the sonic opposite of the external noise to whichever source you are listening; most of the polluting noise is eliminated, leaving just your music or "white noise." Audio cassettes, compact discs, MP3 players or any other audio devices with headphone jacks connect to headphones.
Noise canceling headphones come in a variety of styles from large soft over-the-ear types to earbud-styles. Prices also range from expensive ($300 and up) to relatively inexpensive ($99 or less). Because of the price, it is a good idea to check with the gift recipient to see if this gift would be used.
More gift ideas for landscape gardeners are in this article: Best Gifts for Landscape Gardeners -
Check Out Memberships in Landscape and Plant Societies.
©Text and photograph by Georgene A. Bramlage, November 2007. Reproduction without permission prohibited.
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