I hesitate to utter what one of my friends refers to as the “C” word, at least until the arrival of the relevant month. Can’t really avoid it though: Christmas in 20 days.
In this unusual year, with all its uncertainties, it’s hard to know what the holidays will be like. Travel, safe family group sizes, familiar seasonal celebrations — all depend on infection numbers. Along with other responsible adults, I’ll be following the current guidelines this month with intense interest, hoping that it will be deemed safe enough to enjoy a few festive and relaxing days with my son.
Gardeners and gifts. Over the course of this year, plants and gardens have become for many a refuge from concerns and a source of mental well-being. More time outdoors, growing fresh, nutritious food and colourful flowers, often as a family effort with children involved, all injected notes of optimism and hope into people’s lives.
In our province, enterprises connected with food production are listed as essential services. They include garden centres and nurseries, farmers’ markets and community gardens. But if we want garden centres and other community retailers to remain in business, shopping locally is essential.
Garden centres are now setting up their usual bright Yuletide displays of holiday plants, indoor “gardens” of mixed plants, ornaments for the landscape, helpful and comfort-enhancing gardening aids and tools.
With their own and their customers’ safety in mind, stores have set up directional and crowd number guidelines. Watch the signs on doors and elsewhere, maintain a pleasant demeanour, and enjoy the holiday atmosphere as you select gifts for gardeners and plant lovers.
House plants. Long before the pandemic, the numbers of house plant enthusiasts had been swelling dramatically. My son has been telling me in recent years that Millennials, said to be optimistic and open to new ways of living, have long been mad for indoor plants.
Some garden centres offer extensive selections of house plants as well as beautiful pots. You might find a perfect, and perhaps unusual, plant for adding to the collection of a friend or relative. A plant to brighten your own home might even catch your eye.
Food. Since hordes of people turned to growing vegetables and fruit for the first time this year, they may be keen to continue the pursuit indoors.
Various kinds of seed sprouting equipment are available. Suitable seeds include mung beans, adzuki beans, alfalfa, and blends. The seeds must be designated safe for sprouting, that is, not treated with fungicide.
Microgreens are grown in shallow pots and planting mix. Beet greens, kale, pea and sunflower shoots are popular. West Coast Seeds has useful information, and seeds, for both microgreens and sprouting.
An excellent book on growing food in our climate is local author and teacher Linda Gilkeson’s Backyard Bounty.
Tools and aids. Essential tools for gardening include a long-handled (back-saving) digging shovel, hoe, steel rake, trowel, hand cultivator, basket or trug, hand pruners (secateurs), leaf rake (the fan-shaped kind with slim tines), wheelbarrow. A pruning saw or pair of secateurs paired with a book on pruning would make a useful gift. Gardeners who lose labels and forget plant names might welcome durable metal plant labels or stakes.
Comfort and joy. For ease and pleasure in gardening, consider gifts of comfort: gloves, cushy knee pads, a stool or padded kneeler. For winter gardening a warm, wooly toque or waterproof boots or pull-on shoes.
Concrete or ceramic gnomes, fairies, toads, quail, Buddhas and more bring a certain light-heartedness to an outdoor garden and whimsy to a collection of indoor plants.
Seeds and supplies. Bear in mind that it is uncertain and probably doubtful that there will be any Seedy Saturday events in 2021. Basic vegetable and flower seeds for yourself and as gifts for others may have to be purchased at local garden centres and directly from your favourite companies.
Consider also the run on, and shortages of, seeds and supplies from early spring onward this year. I’ve already begun accumulating a few bags of potting blend ingredients and soil amendments, along with fish and seaweed fertilizers, as I come across them. Several supplies I’d been acquiring routinely for many years became unavailable in the spring. Time to begin stocking up.
