Christmas Gifts for Gardeners

A guide to some of the best Christmas gifts for gardeners, including great books, stocking fillers, helpful gardening tools, secret Santa gardening gifts, seeds, and things gardeners need but wouldn’t think to buy themselves. You’ll find some great ideas here!

If you’re lucky enough to have a gardener in your life, then you’re likely getting gifts all year round. Fresh veggies from the garden and bouquets of beautiful flowers. Then there’s the exercise from being drafted in for work and all the cardio from those lovely garden tours. What better way to show appreciation than treating them with the best Christmas gardening gifts you can find?

As a gardener, let me share some of the best, helpful, and exciting gifts you can give. If you’re a gardener, you may even find a few treats for yourself!

The Best Christmas Gardening Gifts

People who garden tend to have a practical side. We need tools that last, ways to organize the garden and our seeds, and items that make gardening easier and more bountiful. Here are some top picks that make great Christmas gardening gifts that hit the mark.

1. This seed organizer is a must-have for seed collections.
2. Magic rust remover for garden tools. ESSENTIAL & most people don’t have one.
3. A hori hori knife is the best garden tool I’ve owned.
4. Garden hoops and netting to protect crops.
5. Niwaki garden tools. They are the best brand I’ve used.
6. An indoor composter – great for composting meat and cooked food!
7. A PlantSurge water magnetizer helps grow bigger plants.
8. High-quality flask for warm drinks while working outside
9. A garden trug that allows you to harvest and rinse your vegetables
10. A worm farm for composting food waste.
11. Attractive, waterproof, and sturdy gardening boots.
12. This clear window bird feeder. I love mine!

Great Gardening Books

One of the best parts of post-Christmas gardening is flipping through seed catalogs, reading gardening books, and making plans for next year’s garden. Gardening magazine subscriptions are a great gift idea, especially if you know which ones they already read. Books though are the best, though. There’s nothing like curling up after the holidays and soaking in pages of gardening inspiration. Here’s my top ten list:

1. A Woman’s Garden by Tanya Anderson
2. No Dig and Compost by Charles Dowding
3. The Complete Gardener by Monty Don
4. The Seed Detective
5. Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre
6. Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden
7. The Handmade Apothecary
8. First Time Gardener
9. The Ecological Gardener
10. Garden Alchemy
11. The Orchard Book
12. More great garden books are here.

Secret Santa Gardening Gifts & Stocking Fillers

These items are perfect if you’re looking for a small gift as a Secret Santa or for Christmas stockings. All are inexpensive but high quality and will definitely get used.

1. Seed Planting Ruler (very useful)
2. Natural fiber garden twine
3. Reusable slate plant labels
4. Terracotta plant waterers
5. A break-proof mug
6. Comfortable socks
7. Garden dibber (for easy planting of bulbs, seeds, and seedlings)
8. Gardening gloves
9. Gift voucher to a local independent garden center or nursery
10. Seeds!

Grow-Your-Own Garden Gifts

One of the best Christmas gardening gifts that you could get as a gardener is something that grows or helps plants to grow. It could be packets of seeds, a houseplant, or some of these sure-to-please ideas:

1. Survival Garden Heirloom Seed Set (32 varieties)
2. Mushroom-growing kits are fun and delicious!
3. Calamondin citrus plant (I use the small fruits on mine like lemons)
4. Microgreens Seed Sprouter – great for “gardening” in winter
5. Funky Veg Garden Starter Kit
6. Tulip bulbs to plant in winter for spring blooms
7. Bonsai tree to grow indoors
8. Seed Packet Advent Calendar.
9. A miniature fruit tree that can be grown in a container. I have two!
10. Heritage variety garlic. You plant garlic in autumn and winter, and specialty varieties, including elephant garlic, make excellent gifts.

Higher-End Christmas Gifts for Gardeners

You cannot go wrong with these larger garden gift ideas. Smaller items are very handy, but a larger growing area, a potting bench, or storage space can have a massive impact! These items range in price but often can be delivered as a flat-pack or as a gift voucher.

1. Vegepod raised bed for patios and balconies (I love mine!)
2. Garden shredder for shredding woody garden waste.
3. A potting bench for working at
4. Coldframe for hardening off seedlings and growing plants
5. A new greenhouse or polytunnel
6. A beautiful garden shed.
7. A trip to visit one of the recipient’s favorite garden destinations

Avoid these Gardening Gifts

While shopping for your loved one, please keep something in mind. Almost every gardener I know has received a lot of “Gifts for Gardeners.” Well-meaning but flimsy sets of poorly made tools, cotton gloves (that leave your hands soaked), hand cream, and kneeling pads. Honestly, 99% of what’s in a mass-produced gardener gift won’t get used. Here’s a list of other things to avoid when shopping, or at least to be wary of:

• Girlie-gardening items. Anything pink/floral is usually low-quality.
• Badger-inspired gardening gloves. They don’t work.
• Gardening journals. Most people don’t use these.
• Hand cream, unless you know the exact brand that they already use.
• Kneeling pads (we tend to have them already)
• Garden toolsets. Generally, tools that come in sets are of low quality.
• Indoor grow-your-own gardening sets. Other than mushrooms, they’re usually a novelty.
• Gardening gadgets, unless the recipient has clearly shown an interest in one
• Anything that’s primarily made of plastic could be flimsy.

More Christmas Gardening Inspiration

• Make a Christmas Wreath with Foraged Greenery
• Genius Holiday Decoration using Greenery and a COLANDER
• How to Plant a Winter Vegetable Garden
• Creative Ways to Celebrate the Winter Solstice