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.
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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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