12 Days of Christmas - day 4: Gifts for gardeners

We’re celebrating the run up to Christmas a little early with our very own 12 Days of Christmas Gift Guide. Throughout November, we’ll be uploading a selection of gifts for everyone from walkers to lovers of food, pet owners to families, in order to help you find perfect presents tailored to your loved ones’ interests..

For day four, we look at great gift ideas for gardeners:

Windowsill Crate with Organic Herb Seeds, Plantabox: £26
This rustic planting kit allows you to create a thoughtful personalised herb box gift. Containing organic seed tapes impregnated with seed for easy growing, you simply roll out the tapes and water them in – parsley, coriander and sweet basil are included, which can all be used in a range of delicious meals. You are able to fully personalise the wooden windowsill crate which will house the herb garden – choose from eight different colours and then add your own message to the side of the crate. With planting liner and growing instructions also included, it’s the perfect gift for a gardener who enjoys making fresh food or who has limited growing space.

Allotment Kit, Eden Project: £12.25
This beautifully packaged kit contains everything you need to get started on your first vegetable patch or allotment corner, including gloves, coir root runners, giant plant labels, a wooden dibber and aluminum shrub labels. Bound to encourage a loved one to get going with their gardening, this would also make a great gift for the committed gardener, enhancing either’s capacity to grow their own produce.

Birds Away Gift Set, Carrots to Cauliflowers: £9.99
This fantastic, functional gift set helps to scare away birds from your vegetable plot. The garden trowel and fork shapes both flutter in the wind and reflect the sunlight, keeping winged scavengers off your seeds and shoots. The pack comes with twine to allow you to string the shapes between two points above your garden, and the pretty shapes mean that bird scaring need not be an eye sore. This product also won the ‘Outdoor Living’ Category in the 2010 Gift of the Year awards.

Dig for Victory Mug, The Thoughtful Gardener: £8
This hardwearing enamel mug from The Thoughtful Gardener range has a stainless steel rim and is therefore well suited to outdoor use. Emblazoned with the famous wartime motivational mantra, this mug makes the perfect gardening companion.

Hazel Tree, Nigel’s Eco Store: £25.52
Hazelnuts are inextricably associated with Christmas, making this tree a fantastic gift for a plant lover at this time of year. The tree supplied here comes 20-60cm tall and provides multiple possibilities for its recipient - hazel trees can grow to around 20ft, can produce nuts and provide useful wood and can form a strong hedge if cut and laid. For the Celts, the Hazel tree was known as the Tree of Knowledge, and was associated with wisdom and inspiration – so much so that children traditionally blessed brides with a bag of Hazelnuts.

Potting Sieve, Sophie Conran: £16.95
The Sophie Conran Potting Sieve would make a lovely addition to any garden shed. It has been specially designed to be the right size to sprinkle fine compost over seeds without spreading it all over your potting bench. The handle is made from waxed FSC beech and the sieve comes with a five year guarantee. Packaged in a hinged lid presentation box with magnetic closure, this gift is ready to go.

The Gardener’s Radio, Presents for Men: £17.99
Listen to your favourite stations while you garden with this fabulously kitsch watering can-shaped radio. Specially designed for outdoor use, this radio is showerproof and has an extending aerial to pick up signals. There’s also an extending carry handle, allowing you to hang the radio from a branch above you. The radio runs off just two AA batteries, which it comes supplied with so you can get started straight away.

The Guerrilla Gardeners Seed Bomb Making Kit, Eden Project: £5 
A fun present idea for young and old, it would be especially well suited for a family. The Seed Bomb Making Kit contains enough seeds to make 17-20 seed bombs – simply mix your seeds and prepare your bomb and throw it to an empty patch at the back of your garden or a similarly hard to reach spot. Seeds are encased in a protective coating until the right conditions arise for them to bloom – the wildflower mix includes poppy, cornflower, candytuft and gypsophila seeds.

Churn String Tin, Presents for Men: £5.99
This string-in-a-tin makes an incredibly useful addition to the garden, eliminating the inevitable struggle to untangle your ball of string when trying to tie up a stem or branch. The Churn String Tin keens garden twine safe and knot-free, easily dispensing it through a small hole in the lid of the tin. The tin comes with a ball of natural twine supplied making it an attractive gift idea.

Blue Blossom Watering Can, TreatHer.com: £16.99
A lovely chic gift, this watering can has a flowery blossom pattern on a blue background. It is made from galvanised steel and has a five litre cpacity to reach plenty of plants in either the garden or inside the home. A folding handle and removable rose head complete this functional, stylish accessory. 

Gardening Wit – Quips and Quotes for the Green-Fingered, Jane Brook: £9.99
A humourous little book, Jane Brook’s Gardening Wit is filled with quips and lighthearted gardening banter. There are quotes and gardening related jokes perfect for a tea-break. With great reviews from gardening publications, this would make a lovely stocking filler this Christmas.
 

Can-O-Worms with Extra Value Pack, Wiggly Wigglers: £111.00
This fiver layer circular wormery is an environmentally friendly compost creator. As the kilogram of worms move through the levels working the waste as they go, this wormery turns organic waste into liquid fertiliser. The worms are dispatched in special packaging so that they are in top condition on arrival and vouchers are available to buy someone as a gift so that they can set up the wormery before the worms arrive. The gift contains housing, a bedding block, 2kg lime mix, 2kg worm treat, a moisture mat, an instruction booklet and a copy of ‘Worms Eat MY Garbage’.

Keep your eyes peeled for more great Christmas ideas coming soon, or read previous Christmas gift lists by clicking the links below:

Day 1: gifts for wildlife lovers
Day 2: gifts for walkers
Day 3: hampers

And don't miss the December issue of Countryfile Magazine, on sale 16 November, where we've chosen our favourite countryside Christmas presents - from a traditional sledge to an entire veg patch you can give as a gift.