PERFECT GIFTS FOR KEEN GARDENERS

The Festive Season is knocking on the door and there’s still no inspiration in sight. Lateral thinking might help. Gifts for gardeners need not be “gardening gifts”. Though at a last ditch effort there’s nothing like a good garden book.

Computer

A computer! Yes real gardeners are either outdoors in soil or indoors on the computer. We are glued to Google or garden chat sites. We’re emailing each other or archiv-ing digital images of our and other people’s gardens. ADOBE’s Photoshop thrown for the BIG splash would be an extra festive treat. 

Camera

And because there are budding photographers amongst gardening folk, why not gift a camera! Keeping track of a garden’s development as well as indulging in the beauty of flowers digitally, is part of being a gardener. Since prices of the digital SLR cameras have come down to earth, they’re a serious choice for the Christmas stock-ing. The adjustable lens mode on the view finder is a blessing for increasingly short-sighted baby-boomers. The fast recording capability is astonishing and the real click, click, click gives the feel of being a real photo-grapher. A cross-over-hobby gift for a very special gar-dener.

->  www.nikon.at

->  www.canon.at

Books

Gardening books are big business and the market is swamped. It’s a mine-field excursion picking out the best. So many are glossy read-me tomes, aimed to lure uninformed buyers. Many have little substance and explosive prices and inevitably stay stuck to coffee tables. There are exceptions and here three to delight devoted gardeners:

David Austin’s “English Roses”

This up-dated version of Austin’s classic sums up the efforts of one of the world’s greatest living rose experts, whose life’s quest has been the establishing of a new breed of roses. Some of David Austin’s greatest achieve-ments are well known, the rose “Constance Spry” and “New Dawn”. Austin’s adventure with roses has been long. In this book and he illuminates extensively the o-rigin of his “English Roses” as well as proffering essential information on what is considered to be the most beau-tiful of all plant genera.

->  www.amazon.de

Patrick Taylor’s “Best gardens of Britain”, confirms that the inspiration for one’s own garden is sparked when viewing others. This book collects the very best of British gardens, open to visit, but some naturally “by appoint-ment only”. A useful comprehensive guide.

->  www.amazon.de

The Royal Horticultural Society “Water Gardening” by Peter Robinson. A hands-on expert guide backed by the Royal Horticultural Society, to planting your lake, your pond, your tub or for many of us in Austria the Swimming pond. This book is for learning.

->  www.amazon.de

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