Gifts for the desert gardener in your life

Local foods like prickly pear syrup, mesquite flour and native spices are great smaller gifts for friends and family. The Sonoran Pantry at Native Seeds/SEARCH is well worth checking out for these items.

You can get packets of seeds for your fellow gardeners, as well. Native Seeds is a good source as is Borderlands Nursery and Seed.

Memberships in local gardening interest groups are another option. Some of these are more expensive than others, but overall are a good option on a budget.

• Tohono Chul gift memberships start at $35.
• Gift memberships to the Tucson Botanical Garden start at $50.
• The Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society is a huge organization with over 1,700 members and too many activities and benefits to list them all. Membership is only $15 per individual or $20 per family per year. You can also choose a lifetime membership for $500.
• Tucson Orchid Society. Membership is $12 yearly, and benefits include monthly newsletters, a yearly fall auction, a spring show, lectures from knowledgeable guest speakers and more.
• Arizona Native Plant Society Tucson chapter will support your gardener’s interests in native plants. Membership is $30 per year.
• Rose Society of Tucson membership is just $20 per family and you get information on all things rose-related, plus a regular newsletter.
• The Tucson Area Iris Society’s annual membership is just $10.You get access to garden tours, rhizome sales, the national convention, and a monthly newsletter, among other benefits.

Books are always welcome; a recent one is The Forgotten Botanist: Sara Plummer Lemmon’s Life of Science and Art by local author Wynne Brown.

Another one I like is In the Arms of Saguaros: Iconography of the Giant Cactus by William Bird, Jr.; a fun, detailed collection of historic photographs and illustrations featuring our beloved saguaros.

I’m a weather geek, so I always like to list a garden weather station. This can be as basic as outdoor thermometers for your garden all the way up to complex gizmos that measure wind and rainfall. Some of these are more expensive, and technically fall into the next expense category. Some options include this one, which for $125 allows you to view your garden’s temperatures remotely from up to 8 remote sensors.

For a cheaper low-tech option, you can go with this one for $24. There are lots of other options on Amazon.

For more ideas on weather stations and thermometers, you can look at this review.

Good quality gardening tools are also great gifts; make sure the handles are solid and well-attached and the handles are made of a material that offers a good grip. Fiskars is one manufacturer that tends to make good quality tools.

One tool I’ve found incredibly useful is a hori hori knife. It’s inexpensive (around $30) and multifunctional.

I also love my mini-pickaxe, which is super useful in our hard soil in tight areas where you don’t have room to swing a larger one. This one is under $20.

Seats, scooters, and kneelers are helpful for everyone, but particularly for anyone with mobility issues. Here are some options from Gardener’s Supply.

Trugs of various sizes and colors are also great, inexpensive gifts. You can use them to cart around soil, plants, veggies you’ve just harvested, fertilizer, and just about anything else. I try to stay away from plastic, since much of it doesn’t last long in our intense sun. Here are some options:

• 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot or Lowe’s work well if you keep them in the shade, otherwise they will disintegrate within one to two years and leave lots of microplastics in your yard. $5 to $15.
• Plastic tub trugs at Gardener’s Supply. These are relatively inexpensive, starting at $20, and come in lots of fun colors.
• Wicker baskets, if you want to avoid plastic. 

We’re all getting older, and bending over plant beds is less and less appealing. Raised garden planters are a great present for gardeners, but make sure they have room for them. Ideally, opt for ones that are mobile (on casters) so your gardener can move them around the yard depending on the season. Also choose ones that are at least 24 inches deep so that the soil doesn’t dry out too quickly. These can be harder to find, and are quite a bit more pricey than the 10- or 12-inch deep ones. Here’s an example of ones that have the required depth, but they are not mobile.

Compost bins are always welcome, and in our climate the plastic ones may work better than the open-air or wood ones because the pile tends to dry out quickly here. This depends on how much compostable matter your gardener produces, but since most of us don’t have large deciduous trees to provide a huge volume of leaves, it may work better to get smaller plastic tumbling bins for composting household food waste. This composter for $147 is made from recycled plastic and should work well; however the openings will allow for critters to get in.  If your gardener prefers one that’s more sealed off, this is a good option for $100. 

Bed covers for veggies and flower beds have a multitude of uses. I recommend getting the wire cages, which can then be covered in plastic sheeting during cold weather or shade cloth in the summer. Gardener’s Supply has a wide selection. You can also consider small inexpensive greenhouses like this one from Tractor Supply for $50. 

A small water feature can be a great present, particularly if it’s movable. Make sure your gardener has outdoor plugs if there’s a water pump involved. If you decide to go big, you will need a bigger budget, but there are small attractive fountains available at Mesquite Valley Growers, at 8005 E. Speedway Blvd., or from various online suppliers. Eco Gro, located at 657 W. Saint Mary’s Road, can also help you make your own water feature.

Garden carts are very useful for transporting heavier items, and are much easier to use than wheel barrows. This Gorilla Cart is a good option for $159.  The tires are nice and fat, and the side panels are removable.

If you really want to splurge on your gardener, there are lots of options. One is to get them an expensive plant they’ve been wanting – for example, a particularly large boojum tree or a Joshua Tree. However, I strongly recommend against getting large plants as a surprise without discussing it with your gardener. It may turn out that they don’t have a location for that plant, or don’t want it for some other reason.

Another option is to get them a larger, freestanding polycarbonate greenhouse. These are of some use in the desert, but their applications are limited for the most part to the cooler months. They get ridiculously hot in the summer, so are mainly of use in the winter for early starting of veggies or growing frost-sensitive plants. However, some greenhouses allow you to remove the panels, which would extend their usefulness in our climate — particularly if they could be covered with shade cloth. As with the expensive plants mentioned above, please discuss this option with your gift recipient to ensure they can actually use it, and have room for it. There are lots of options at Home Depot as well as on websites such as Greenhouse Megastore.

As an alternative to a greenhouse, you can consider getting them a shade house. This is just what it sounds like, and is very useful for gardeners who need space for starting native plants, or have a tendency to collect lots of plants before putting them in the ground. These tend to run on the large side as they are primarily aimed at commercial growers. You could get creative and get a small greenhouse and then replace the PVC cover that comes with it with shade cloth.

Finally, a garden shed is a great gift for a gardener. Prefabricated ones that can be put together by an experienced DIY’er are probably your best deal, but even smaller ones will be great for storing bags of fertilizer, old pots, and garden tools. A really nice shed can be large enough to include a potting area. There are tons of aesthetic options, from wood to plastic to metal, as well as almost any size you can imagine.

Enjoy your holiday season!