(Daniel Jurman / For The Times)
10 best affordable gifts for plant lovers — so you can snag more than one
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Plant people are typically down-to-earth, practical and — truth be known — relatively thrifty. So the trick is to find holiday gifts they might quietly covet but aren’t willing to spend the money on for themselves.
You can take the simple route and buy them an annual membership to an L.A.-area botanic garden. But if you want something to wrap up, consider my recommendations here. Most are so modestly priced you could purchase a couple for less than $50.
And if you really want to be a plant lover’s hero, include a bag of organic earthworm castings (i.e. nutrient-rich worm poop), a welcome elixir for any leafy baby. Just check their garden shed first, to be sure they don’t already have a big bag.
If you make a purchase using some of our links, the L.A. Times may be compensated. Prices and availability of items in the Gift Guide and on latimes.com are subject to change.
Showing Gifts
Burgon & Ball indoor watering can
Garden Tools & Accessories $24.99-$32.27 at Corona Tools
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(Jane Lee)
Here’s the sad truth about watering cans: They can be bulky and drippy, making indoor watering a mess. But this compact indoor watering can from Burgon & Ball, a British sister company to Corona Tools, is as functional as it is stylish, with a smooth measured flow that does not dribble or leak. Bonus point: This one is handsome enough to sit out on the counter. It comes in charcoal or stone.
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'Daisy Rewilds' picture book by Margaret McNamara
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(Shelby Moore / For The Times)
Rewilding “is a way of conserving the natural world by letting nature take care of itself,” writes author Margaret McNamara. It’s a technique that can be hard to understand and embrace, especially when it comes to “rewilding” suburban landscapes. In “Daisy Rewilds,” McNamara and illustrator Kerascoët delightfully introduce the concept to children via Daisy, a nymph-like girl who sleeps in a bed of leaves, sheds milkweed seeds and naturally sprouts a crown of sunflowers on her head. Her parents despair that she’ll ever be clean, but with her gardener aunt’s encouragement, Daisy transforms their sterile lawn into a lush habitat of native (to Maine) flowers and pollinators their neighbors soon start to admire — and with Daisy’s exuberant help — imitate.
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IKEA DAKSJUS bamboo plant stand
Home Decor $29.99 at IKEA
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(IKEA U.S.)
Here’s a modestly priced — and tremendously useful gift — for your houseplant-loving friends who are running out of shelf space. The DAKSJUS plant stand is compact enough to fit into a sunny corner next to a couch or chair and easily holds at least two good-sized plants. The stand came disassembled, but I was able to put one together in just 15 minutes (and I’m the least handy person I know). The kit comes with all the required tools, so be a pal and assemble it before presentation. The gift will look much nicer that way, especially if you present it with a plant.
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Ten Thousand Villages Self-watering Plant Pet
Garden Tools & Accessories $12.99 at Ten Thousand Villages
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(Shelby Moore / For The Times)
These handcrafted terracotta plant pets are adorable little devices for keeping potted plants alive. I’ve tried several other stick-in-the-soil watering devices, but most were too bulky, unattractive or hard to refill. These “pets” are whimsical creatures that look nice with your plants and actually work at slowly dispensing moisture to the roots, avoiding the problem that kills most houseplants: overwatering. Ten Thousand Villages provides a marketplace for craftspeople around the world; these plant pets are made by women artisans in Dhaka, Bangladesh, through the Christian Organization for Relief and Rehabilitation—the Jute Works, a women’s nonprofit handicraft marketing trust and exporter. I chose the kitty, but they also make a pretty sweet whale.
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Onlysuki potting mat
Garden Tools & Accessories $5.79-$14.99 at Amazon
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(Shelby Moore / For The Times)
These colorful potting mats are a brilliant invention for keeping things tidy when you’re potting a plant. I tend to spill soil everywhere, which is particularly problematic if you’re working inside, but these waterproof mats keep all the soil contained even if you spill, and they make cleanup easy. These indispensable mats fold up to the size of tea towels, so they are great stocking stuffers. But if you want to go bigger, add a bag of good quality organic potting soil, a lovely pot and/or a great hand-shovel scoop. I particularly love (and frequently use) these $47 soil scoops by Garden Works.
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Wild Violetta hand-care kit
Skin Care $47 from Etsy
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(Colleen Humphrey)
It’s pretty easy to spot people who work in the soil: They’re the ones with cracked hands and dirt caked under their nails and around their cuticles. You can assemble your own kit of favorite hand soothers, but Encinitas, Calif.,-based Colleen Humphrey of Wild Violetta makes it easy with her lovely kit — an excellent wooden nail brush she designed, a soothing hand and cuticle cream she mixed and a fragrant eucalyptus-tea tree soap, plus a pair of sturdy-but-very-pretty garden gloves. My gardener friend was delighted to receive this gift!
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'The ABCs of California's Native Bees' by Krystle Hickman
Books $38 at Bookshop.org
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(Krystle Hickman)
Krystle Hickman quit her desk job to pursue her passion: finding and photographing California native bees in the wild. And the world is richer for the results: an exquisite 240-page volume published by Heyday Books, loaded with detailed color photos of these tiny threatened creatures and engaging stories about her quest, which took her all over the state. This book is beautiful, highly informative and a pleasure to read, because Hickman weaves personal anecdotes among all the science. It’s a great gift for adults, children — really anyone intrigued by the incredible diversity of our native flora and fauna. (Hoping she’ll come out with a line of native bee stuffies in the future since these little critters are adorable.)
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Theodore Payne Foundation Chaparral Princess cap
Accessories $32 at Theodore Payne Foundation
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(Theodore Payne Foundation)
The Theodore Payne Foundation has a knack for making native plants hip and selling quality merchandise coveted by native fashionistas such as their new Chaparral Princess cap inspired by singer-songwriter Chappell Roan. The foundation offers several other cool pigment-dye caps, featuring California poppies; the white trumpet flowers of sacred datura (with matching socks!); and my favorite, a tribute to the foundation’s new satellite, Los Nogales Nursery at Debs Park in Montecito Heights. In a very unscientific survey of Times staffers, the Chaparral Princess cap was the hands-down winner, especially among the under-40 crowd. You have been warned.
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The Huntington California wildflower prints
Home Decor $25-$85 at the Huntington print shop
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(Shelby Moore / For The Times)
Illustrator Elisabeth Hallowell Saunders published a slim volume of 12 exquisite California wildflower illustrations in 1905. The book is now out of print (although you can view it digitally via the World Herb Library), but lucky for us, the Huntington’s print shop can provide us with quality copies of each illustration (under the name Elisabeth M. Hallowell) in three different sizes: 8 inches by 16 inches, 11 inches by 22 inches and 15 inches by 30 inches. The hardest part really is trying to choose which ones to buy. For an extra classy gift, try finding a frame for your selection or have it framed by the Huntington’s print shop, which offers a variety of choices. Prices for a small framed print are $155.
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Rejuvenation Cranberry Eucalyptus Dried Wreath
Home Decor $129 at Rejuvenation
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(Rejuvenation)
Evergreen wreaths are a holiday classic, but they’re usually dried up and done by New Year’s Day. Rejuvenation offers a wide variety of plant-material wreaths designed to last much longer, as long as they’re kept indoors or hung on a sheltered front door away from direct sunlight and wet weather. The cranberry eucalyptus model is a handsome wreath made from red and green eucalyptus branches grown on a family farm in California. (Twenty percent of the purchase price of every wreath will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.) The look is festive for the holidays, but demur enough to continue into spring. What I like best is its subtle fragrance. I hung it on the closet door in my bedroom so every time I enter the room, it’s like walking through a grove of eucalyptus.
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