Down-to-the-wire gardening gifts

MOSES LAKE — This is it. Christmas is dead ahead, so there’s no more time for lollygagging. It’s time to find something for the gardeners on the Christmas list. 

Okay, but what? Central Washington isn’t Australia - it’s cold out there right now. Not a lot of gardening opportunities at the moment. Ah, but luckily gardening is one of those things that requires a veritable plethora of accessories, materials and tools.

Lisa Villegas, owner of the Seed Cupboard Nursery in Royal City, provided a long list of possibilities. Gardening tools, gardening gloves, seeds, watering cans, fertilizer, sun hats, little pads to kneel on - the list is almost endless.

“Such a huge choice,” Villegas said.

A popular way to take advantage of that bounty is a garden gift basket, but using a cool pot in place of an actual basket, she said. 

Watering cans are an example of the choices available. Plastic, galvanized steel or brass? One gallon or two? The tried and true traditional look or one that resembles a coffee pot? A weird - um, unusual - handle? Purple? Pink? Blue? 

Got some tight spaces? Maybe hand tools, singles or in a set. These days it’s possible to find a garden stool with space for tools. Maybe more specialized tools, like that thing that looks like a spider with arthritis (it’s actually a garden claw). 

There are specialized garden tool belts, and of course gardening gloves. Gloves come in various kinds of plastic, leather, synthetic leather, spandex and blends of various materials. For those who really want to dig deep in the soil, there are gloves with tips like claws.

It’s easier to carry all those tools in a garden caddy. Some of them are on wheels now, like a suitcase. The classic bag with a handle still has its fans. Others can be attached to a bucket.

Big heavy pots are, well, big and heavy and hard to move. Garden inventors have thought of that, and developed a doohickey on wheels just for the purpose of moving them.

Planters and pots provide a dizzying array of choices. Hanging planters, wall planters, planters with stands, planter boxes, planters on wheels are all out there. So are portable raised garden beds, urns, and self-watering options. Pots come in the classic terracotta and every other color imaginable; they’re round, square, rectangular, made of plastic, unglazed clay, glazed clay, concrete, wood. 

Most gardeners are not averse to some ornament, like a sculpture, a decorative trellis, a fountain or birdbath, a spinner or a bench. 

And if there’s too much choice, a gift certificate lets a gardener make his or her own choice. And yes, a lot of local nurseries are closed for the winter, but the Seed Cupboard, Blue Rouge Garden and Nursery in Moses Lake and Emerald Desert Nursery in Quincy all have options to purchase a gift certificate online.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.