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Christmas Shopping for the Power Gardener

© Carol Wallace

Here's something you can be sure no one else in the neighborhood will have -- a custom-made maze, in your choice of stone walls or traditional hedging. For the budget minded, you can always commission the design, and merely mow it into the recipient's lawn to give them an interesting walking exercise.

Perhaps your friends are patrons of the arts? They might enjoy a little garden sculpture. For the traditionalist, Belfax Bronze offers some beautiful sculptures of women and children. The more avant-garde may prefer an abstract by Archie Held. The antique buff may like something in marble, and this striding Victorian woman is just beautiful enough to make me wish I were a power gardener with wealthy friends.

In fact, if I were a power gardener with wealthy friends, I would then treat myself to this gate, which would then force me to rest from my power-shopping surf to take time to research and plan an Art deco garden. It will also help to keep all the power-gifts I receive safe from intruders. I would sit inside, feet up on this modest little stone bench and read some rare horticultural tome. Later, after I have wafted through the flower beds, probably in Victorian whites, snipping a rosebud here and there, I would meet my husband in the new antique gazebo for a sip of Dom Perignon before the under-maid brought out our dinner hamper of beluga and pheasant under glass on our second-best Limoges.

However, being neither wealthy nor a power-gardener, I will settle for evening coffee in our own half-finished gazebo. But I want it now. The ultimate gift to me would be a way to make it summer so I can quit staring at snowflakes and plunge my hands back into the dirt! I could forego marble sculpture and gold-plated tools easily if only I could have that. Actually, I could forego them even without. Real gardeners want only a very few things in their hearts of hearts — good soil, healthy plants and the chance to go out and play with them.

So if you're not shopping for a power-gardener, consider a gift with real meaning this year. Perhaps a truckload of mulch. It's tough to wrap, but it's big, affordable, suits gardeners of all tastes, and is a gift that will keep on giving. And I can guarantee that any real gardeners on your list will appreciate it as much, or even more than the most elaborate solid platinum garden bench you can find.