The best ones are useful all year
The gardening guide/calendars from master gardeners of Sacramento and Placer counties are practical gifts for gardeners. Kathy Morrison
We’re all pressed for time around the holidays, so I’m going to make this short and sweet. Here are my top five gifts for the gardener in your life (and that can include yourself):
– A UCCE Master Gardener 2023 Gardening Guide and Calendar. Sacramento County’s version is a steal at $10, and it is packed with tips and guides for a whole year of gardening. This year’s theme is vegetables, but there is plenty of other useful information, including planting charts. Find it at nurseries (in some cases at a slightly higher price) or order it online from the Sacramento MG website: https://sacmg.ucanr.edu/Gardening_Guide/ That same page includes a list of retailers that carry the calendar.
For foothill gardeners, Placer County master gardeners also produce a gardening guide/calendar, which costs $12 and also can be ordered online here: https://pcmg.ucanr.org/2023_Calendar/ Quite a few vendors in Placer, Nevada and El Dorado counties sell copies in person.
– A hori hori knife. This wonderful hand tool can be used for digging, planting bulbs, cutting roots, opening amendment bags and trimming off dead twigs, and that’s just for starters. Look for one with the tang running through the handle; these tend to start about $20 and go up considerably, depending on the manufacturer and where it's purchased.
– Membership in the Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum. The arboretum on the UC Davis campus is one of my favorite places in the entire Sacramento region, so I proudly support it. Being a member also provides early access to the spring and fall plant sales, plus purchase discounts. Individual memberships start at $48 ($18 for students). Check out this page for Friends membership info, including a link for gift memberships.
A membership is the perfect last-minute gift, as is a gift card to a nursery. Here’s a blog post from 2021 on other local memberships, as well as local nurseries that sell gift cards.
– A tool caddy that fits on a bucket. These can be found in just about any hardware store, as well as online, running $16 and up, depending on the material, size and how it’s attached to the bucket. After trying many ways to carry around my garden tools, I am really happy with this. (Mine came from Womanswork.) The caddy fits over and around a standard bucket. The big tools go inside the bucket, while the pockets outside carry small tools and stuff that’s essential but always gets lost in a large carrier: seed packets, a pencil or pen, drip irrigation staples and emitters, a small ruler, scissors and twist ties, just for starters. I definitely lose less stuff now because I can always see my orange-garbed bucket.
– The bucket to go with the above. Or just the bucket itself. I never know gardeners to have enough buckets, either the hard-sided 5-gallon variety (which start about $5 at hardware stores) or the flexible Gorilla Tub type.
For some bonus ideas, here’s a list from two years ago of other potential gifts for gardeners from non-gardening stores.
Happy shopping!
Comments
0 comments have been posted.Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.
Local News
Thanks to our sponsor!
Sites We Like
Garden Checklist for week of May 12
Get your gardening chores and irrigation done early in the day before temperatures rise.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions. This heat will cause leafy greens and onions to flower; pick them before they bolt.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.
* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Got fruit trees? If you haven't already done so, thin orchard fruit such as apples, peaches, pears, pluots and plums before they grow too heavy, breaking branches or even splitting the tree. Leave the largest fruit on the branch, culling the smaller ones, and allow for 5 to 6 inches (or a hand's worth) between each fruit.
* Thin grape bunches, again leaving about 6 inches between them. For the remaining bunches, prune off the "tail" end, about the bottom third of the bunch, so that the plant's energy is concentrated in the fruit closest to the branch.
* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.
Powered by California Local
