If you've been dragging your feet and you still haven't gotten your favorite gardener a gift, fear not, as Charlie Nardozzi has great ideas - from hand tools to totes to even special gloves and seed-starting supplies.
Here are a few suggestions of multi-use gifts for the gardener in your life:
1. Rubber tub with handles: These rubberized plastic tubs can hold about 3 to 20 gallons of material in them — whether it be produce, weeds, harvested veggies or compost. Your gardener will find them to be sturdy and long-lasting.
2. Nitrile garden gloves: These form-fit your hands and are great for gripping and not slipping as you work in your garden and with tools. They are tough as leather, too.
3. Tool totes: These are belts that wrap around a five-gallon bucket, like the cross-body tool bag. It can hold string, tools, clippers, seeds, everything you need to carry out to your garden space in one easy lift.
4. Seed-starting supplies: These are great for getting a leg-up on your garden for starting seeds indoors for next spring and summer. You could include the pots, soil, new seed varieties, markers, everything!
5. A nature-theme journal: This practical gift is great for garden-dreaming and planning out your raised bed or garden plot. Keep track of what you've planted where and how it fared from season to season, then in a few years, you'll have a great guide to your own garden plot and learn from successes (and garden failures!)
Q: I have several middle-aged rhododendrons. This winter they all have very large and well-formed buds here in December. They look like they are about to bloom. Should I be concerned? — John, in Wallingford
Be it young, middle-aged or even older rhododendrons, you don't need to worry. These will shut down for the winter just fine even though it is not unusual for them to bloom a bit in late fall. They will fall dormant for the winter and rest up and then bloom again in spring.
All Things Gardening is powered by you, the listener! Send your gardening questions and conundrums and Charlie may answer them in upcoming episodes. You can also leave a voicemail with your gardening question by calling VPR at (802) 655-9451.
Hear All Things Gardening during Weekend Edition Sunday with VPR host Mary Engisch, Sunday mornings at 9:35.
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