dirt / By Amy Stewart

In Praise of Stuff

Simple garden gift ideas for lean times

(Dec. 11, 2008)  It used to be such a simple, innocent question: What do you want for Christmas? Tell me and it will save me the trouble of buying the wrong thing. Tell me and you’ll probably get it.

It’s a question we’ve heard from our spouses, parents, children, friends — what do you want? And just like that, you could name it. Some sparkly little thing that caught your eye. As long as it was modest and perhaps scalable (you’d be just as happy with the paperback; you’ll take a dozen bulbs or a hundred), you’d probably get it.

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But this year it is so not okay to want stuff. In response to the “What do you want?” question, I find myself giving answers like, “I want you to hold onto your money and stay out of foreclosure” — and I actually mean it.

However. Just for the moment. Let us hearken back to those simpler times when it was okay to want stuff. Let’s pretend your loved one has decided that virtue has its place, but so does buying something pretty for the person who has agreed to wake up next to you every single day, no matter how old and weird you get.

Let us celebrate stuff.

In the name of research, I took a little trip around the county and checked out all the stuff for sale at garden centers, bookstores and garden gift shops. I also asked a few friends around town, all dedicated gardeners, what they wanted. Here’s what we came up with:

Gloves. People, I know I’ve said it before, but it remains true: A gardener can never, ever have too many gloves. They fall apart, they get lost, they get old and crusty and miserable. So buy gloves as gifts. And the best news is that you are really free to choose any style that appeals to you — most gardeners I know will happily use whatever they have. Heavy-duty padded gloves from West County are great for pruning roses or other rugged work; delicate stylish Foxgloves will keep the dirt off long enough to let you pull a few weeds or re-pot your containers; and the cheap but astonishingly durable Atlas gloves are true workhorses. You absolutely cannot go wrong with gloves. And if you’re not sure about the size, buy them locally and include a receipt so they are easy to exchange.

Plant food. It’s practical, it’s consumable, and it can be very, very local. More than one gardener told me that they don’t want luxuries, they want basics. At one garden center, I ran into a neighbor who pointed to the gallon-sized jugs of FoxFarm’s liquid organic fertilizer, Big Bloom, made right here in Arcata. The gallon jugs aren’t that expensive — maybe 30 bucks — but it’s more than she usually spends on fertilizer. If you’re not a gardener, it may be hard to understand how giddy we get over bat guano and earthworm castings and liquid seaweed. But trust me, this will be the gift that says: I get you.

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