Our gardening columnist Mandy Bradshaw has been hunting out Christmas gifts for the gardeners in your life
Soap Folk
Something to pamper hard-working hands and aching limbs after a day gardening is always welcome, and Soap Folk have just the thing.
This Stroud Valleys-based company produces handmade body treats using traditional methods and natural ingredients. Not only are they palm oil-free, they also have plastic-free packaging.
Fiona McBryde started the firm in 2018 when she saw a boutique advertising for soap-makers.
‘I’ve always loved soap-making,’ she says. ‘I impulsively replied ‘Yes!’ and Soap Folk was born.’
Since then, the firm has been invited to a Downing Street event to showcase sustainable British business and counts National Trust stores and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh among its stockists.
If you’re looking for hand care, we like the Hardworking Hands Soap, with coconut and sweet fennel oils mixed with charcoal for getting mud off fingers. It’s £9.95 for a 200g bar.
Follow that with Chamomile Hand Rescue Balm, designed to soothe dry skin. A 50g tin is £10.
A hot bath is always welcome after a day spent digging and the Lavender Salt Bath Cube will add the scent of summer. It includes skin softening salts and a 150g cube is £5.
More details at soapfolk.com
Gabriel Ash
With our increasingly erratic seasons, a cold frame has never been more useful for sheltering plants over winter and bringing on seedlings.
Gloucestershire-based Gabriel Ash produce attractive and functional handcrafted cold frames made from Western Red Cedar with toughened safety glass lids.
There are three sizes: the Baby Grand (£664.79), Grand (£849.59) and the upright (£1,239.59), useful if you don’t have room for a greenhouse.
Details at gabrielash.com
NGS mugs
Drinking a cuppa is often the only time a gardener pauses to look around. Make it extra special with a beautiful National Garden Scheme mug, designed by Emma Bridgewater.
The ‘Bring Me Sunshine’ mug is a collaboration between the charity, Emma Bridgewater and rose grower David Austin Roses.
It features the breeder’s English shrub rose named for comedy duo Morecambe and Wise’s theme tune and is guaranteed to bring some floral sunshine.
There’s also a honeysuckle mug, inspired by woodland planting on the charity’s Chelsea show garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith.
Both mugs are £25 each and can be ordered via the NGS website: ngs.org.uk The last date for ordering is December 17 for standard post, December 19 for express delivery.
Crocus wire cloches
Not all wildlife is welcome in gardens – pigeons and rabbits can wreak havoc on plants, particularly in the vegetable garden. These wire cloches from Crocus are an attractive way of protecting things.
The bell-shaped steel cloche is ideal for individual plants and has a built-in copper belt to deter slugs and snails. For best results, push it down so the copper belt is close to ground level. A small cloche is £34.99 and a large £44.99.
For rows of seedlings or plants, there’s the tent cloche. Again, it’s made of metal with lichen green powder coating. One cloche is £64.99 and two are £109.99. Details at crocus.co.uk
TASK gift vouchers
Learn gardening and landscaping skills on one of the hands-on courses run by TASK Training Academy near Pershore.
Set up by award-winning landscaper Rupert Keys, the firm trains professionals and amateurs in skills ranging from dry stone walling and bricklaying to garden trug-making and garden design.
The one-day public courses are taught by industry experts and are a great way of learning skills that can be put to use in DIY projects.
Course prices range from £110 to £150 and can be booked at taskacademy.co.uk There are also gift vouchers available.
Taylors Bulbs egg boxes
An eggbox full of bulbs makes a great stocking filler. Taylors Bulbs have produced tulip, allium and narcissi kits where you simply take off the lid, plant the box, water and wait for it to grow.
They are priced at £4.99 and are available from garden centres including Highfield Garden World, Gloucester, and Batsford Garden Centre, Moreton-in-Marsh.
Ruth Goudy Flower Wisdom
Flowers have had special meanings for generations and these have been distilled into meditation cards by writer Ruth Goudy.
Designed as a starting point for reflection, Flower Wisdom draws on her research into the history, use and folklore surrounding flowers.
‘Flowers have an immediate emotional impact,’ she says. ‘We turn to them by sending them at times of greatest joy and sorrow.’
The set of 43 cards comes with a guidebook covering the meaning behind each flower with suggestions of how to use the pack. In addition, there are 10 guided flower meditations that can be bought individually or as a set.
Flower Wisdom is £24.99 with £1 from every sale going to Horatio’s Garden, a charity providing gardens at NHS spinal injury units. The Guided Flower Meditations set is £24.99 or £2.99 each. Details and ordering from ruthgoudy.com
Haws
Watering is one of those gardening jobs you either love or hate. Either way, having a good watering can makes it easier.
Haws have been making them for around 130 years and the design is virtually unchanged with the cans hand-crafted at the firm’s factory near Birmingham.
One of its most popular styles is the Warley Fall, which is perfectly balanced and with a long reach for getting to plants and interchangeable roses. It’s made from galvanised steel and comes in one gallon and two gallon sizes. Looked after, these are cans designed to last a lifetime.
Prices start from £115 for a one gallon can. Details at haws.co.uk
New this season, is a limited-edition Burford Blue Warley Fall watering can (£95), available from Burford Garden Company. Designed as part of an exclusive collaboration, this is a two gallon can in a distinctive Burford Blue. There’s also the Burford Blue Fazeley Flow two pint can (£45) for indoor plants or greenhouses available exclusively at Burford. Details at burford.co.uk
BOOKS
Garden Heaven
There’s nothing quite like a escaping into a beautiful garden and Gloucestershire author Vanessa Berridge has suggestions of places to visit in ‘Garden Heaven’ (National Trust Books £16.99).
Cotswold gardens featured are Bourton House Garden, Kiftsgate Court Gardens and Hidcote Manor Garden with Norfolk’s East Ruston Old Vicarage and Branklyn Garden, Perth, among others from across the country.
There’s insight into the making of these gardens, a ‘walk through’ what you will find and plenty of photographs to add temptation.
We Made a Garden
Garden for long enough and you’ll come across Margery Fish. Credited with introducing Astrantia ‘Shaggy’ and with numerous other plants named for her, she was one of the most admired gardeners and garden writers of her time.
Her classic ‘We Made a Garden’ has just been reprinted by Batsford (£14.99) and is an inspiring read. Following the creation of her celebrated garden at East Lambrook Manor, Somerset, it’s a blueprint for the cottage garden style, and an exploration of how two people with opposing views on garden design can share one plot.
Hello Tiny World
Learn how to create a miniature garden with terrarium expert Ben Newell’s debut book, ‘Hello Tiny World’ (£20 Dorling Kindersley).
The Worcester-based grower outlines his top tips for this popular method of bringing plants into the home. Covering everything from the different types of terrariums to what soil to use and plant choices, the book also has projects to try.
Hortobiography
‘Hortobiography’ (Ebury Press £22), Carol Klein’s account of her life, is as much about the plants that she loves – poppies, lupins and bellflowers to name just three – as the people and events that have shaped her.
From her roots in Manchester to her Devon nursery, through teaching art to television fame and status as RHS Iconic Horticultural Hero at the Hampton Court Flower Show, it’s the story of a woman who followed her passion for plants and nature.
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