Celebrate the gardeners in your life this holiday season with gifts that encourage their passion for plants while respecting the environment. For the eco-conscious gardener, selecting gifts that promote sustainability ensures their gardening practices are as kind to the earth as possible.
Whether it’s a thoughtful accessory, a plant to brighten their garden, or a gadget to streamline their routines, sustainable gift ideas abound. With a little creativity and consideration, you can find the best gifts for gardeners that delight and align with the values of the nature lovers on your list.
Sustainable Gift Ideas For Gardeners
Our round-up of eco-friendly gift ideas includes environmentally forward products made by small businesses, alongside the latest sustainable technology from trusted brands.
If you're ready to start shopping, find all these gifts and more in our range of sustainable essentials in the Gardening Know How Shop.
1. Hummingbird Feeder
Feeding the birds is such a wonderful way to connect with nature and encourage healthy biodiversity in your backyard. In particular, hummingbirds are delightful garden visitors and are often in need of sustenance on their long migratory journeys.
The clever flower design of Wayside Gardens' Sugar Shack Hanging Hummingbird Feeder not only makes a striking feature in the garden, it also protects the sugar water contained within, sheltering it from the sun.
Alternatively, the brand's Jewel Box Hummingbird Feeder can be fixed to the window using suction cups, allowing you to observe these amazing birds up close.
2. Bee Cups
Bee Cups are ingenious pollinator water stations that combine science and beauty. Created by ceramic artist and ecological scientist Jen Rose, the handmade cups are designed to hold exactly the right amount of water to nourish local bees. What's more, they feature a non-slip surface for safe drinking and have a UV glaze that makes them inviting to bees.
Choose from pretty pastel shades, bold hues, and simple white, and dot them around your garden next to pollinator-friendly plants.
3. Electric Composter
The Reencle Home Composter is the ultimate sustainable gift for gadget lovers. Unlike other electric composters which dehydrate food waste and kill off the beneficial bacteria in the process, Reencle supports microbes to create the closest thing to compost in less than 24 hours.
The end product can be immediately used as mulch or top dressing in the garden, or it can be mixed with soil in an unplanted area of the garden and left to cure for three weeks, before being used for planting.
No other electric composter offers plantable compost this quickly, and the appliance can even handle meat and dairy products, dramatically reducing the amount of food waste sent to landfill.
4. Herb Growing Kit
Treat environment-conscious foodies to a herb growing kit, enabling them to skip plastic-wrapped grocery store herbs and cultivate their own on the kitchen countertop.
Coco & Seed is an independent business that curates hydroponic and soil-based growing kits in a mason jar. Choose from a Basil Hydroponic Mason Jar Growing Kit or a Mason Jar Herb Garden Soil Kit with a choice of basil, mint, cilantro, thyme, or sage.
Each kit contains everything needed to grow herbs in the kitchen and includes a laser-engraved bamboo plant label, which sets off the kit to perfection.
5. Living Mini Christmas Tree
A potted living Christmas tree is so much more sustainable than one that is thrown away at the end of the season. It makes a delightful gift that can be used year after year, or even planted in the garden.
Jackson & Perkins' Nature's Finest Decorated Christmas Tree comes fully decorated with pine cones and ribbons, offering a refined, rustic look that would complement any decor, from traditional to modern country schemes.
For a more vibrant aesthetic, the brand's Candy Cane Swirl Decorated Christmas Tree is adorned with joyful red and white ornaments and candy canes.
6. Multi-purpose Bag
Crescent Garden's Gabrielle Bag is possibly the most multipurpose, reusable bag you can buy. The lightweight, durable, and recyclable design can be used as tool bag, shopping tote, beach bag, plant pot, watering can, gift bag, storage caddy, and whatever else you can imagine.
Available in a range of six stylish colors and three sizes, there is a Gabrielle bag to suit every taste and need. It's truly a bag for life.
7. In-Ground Worm Composter
Vego's In-Ground Worm Composter is the perfect gift for a sustainable gardener who wants to take their composting to the next level. Composting with worms – or vermicomposting – creates the most nutrient-rich, wonderfully loamy compost for gardens.
Simply dig it into a hole in the ground, add a few worms and kitchen scraps, and let them get to work. While traditional composting methods can take 6-12 months to break down food scraps into usable material, vermicomposting takes just 2-3 months, and the resulting compost is as good as it gets.
8. Plants for Pollinators
Instead of buying an environmentally conscious friend something that will eventually need to be thrown away, give them the gift of nature. Choose a beautiful pollinator-friendly plant that can be grown in a container or added to a garden bed.
Fall butterfly garden plants are a particularly valuable addition, as they offer food and habitat for butterflies and bees at a time of year when supplies are dwindling.
Take things a step further with a Native Pollinator Garden Kit from Plant By Number, which contains a planting map for a ready-made garden bed along with four vibrant pollinator favorites that are not only attractive to bees and butterflies but hummingbirds too.
9. Solar Lights
Dream of warmer, sunny days when you can enjoy the garden into the evening. Garden lights are essential to allow you to do this safely, but why waste electricity?
Vego's Solar Garden Lights are waterproof and charged by the sun. They are magnetic and designed for fitting to corrugated raised metal garden beds. Built-in sensors turn on the lights at nightfall for five hours of effortless ambiance.
10. Seed Selection
Whether you're buying for a curious new grower or seasoned pro, a packet of seeds is one of the most sustainable and inspiring gifts you can give. What could be more fulfilling than cultivating their own gorgeous flowers or organic home-grown produce?
Choose from our hand-picked collection of non-GMO garden seeds from Park Seed, including the most reliable flower seeds, vegetable seeds, and herb seeds. Treat someone to a single packet as a stocking stuffer, or build your own bundle complete with more seed-starting essentials.
More Gift Inspiration
- Give the gift of joy this festive season with our hand-picked selection of presents to satisfy everyone on your list. Browse the highlights in the Gardening Know How Shop Holiday Gift Guide.
- Inspired indoor gardeners with 10 joyful houseplant gift ideas, from stylish pots to unique varieties.
- Discover 9 host and hostess gift ideas that are so much better than a boring bottle of wine.
This article features products available from third-party vendors on the Gardening Know How Shop.
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