There's a possibly apocryphal story about a spurned lover who sneaked into her rival's treasured garden at 2am and scattered privet and broom seeds, weeds that are hard to eradicate and which last in the soil for decades. It was a pretty effective gardening curse.
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We have several flowering weed gifts that were given with the best of intentions (I think) but will keep us hacking them back for the rest of our lives, including potato vine and jasmine.
At this time of year any plant that is going to need a large hole dug for it, with regular watering through January's heat, is possibly not a the best gift, unless you know the recipient longs for it.
Plant gifts for gardeners are always dicey. The owner of an elegant green and white garden may not be grateful for a gaudy rose in shades of pink and orange.
Most enthusiastic gardeners have little room in their gardens after they have the basics in the ground. If they do have room, they probably know what they want to plant in it.
As a general rule, give small plant as gifts. Most gardens can fit in a few stunning Christmas lilies, or a voucher for a dozen daffodils in February, or even a cluster of mini non-seeding agapanthus.
A few kangaroo paws, rhodanthe ever-lasting daisies, a goji berry vine or delicious and ornamental herbs like curly mint or purple basil, will usually be adored. The wisteria that eventually lifts the roof, the Wollemi pine that lifts your foundations or the eucalypt whose branches fall on the house will be less welcome, unless it is a very big garden indeed.
Bonsai are adorable, but their carers need some basic bonsai knowledge or that carefully sculpted miniature landscape will soon turn into an expensive pot of dead tree from lack of light, too much light, too little watering et al.
Having said all that, if you want to do your entire gift shopping in a hour, head for the garden centre. Not all garden gifts have leaves, and I'm not just talking about garden gnomes or concrete hippos to lurk in the fernery.
There'll be swings and climbing frames for kids; miniature solar fountains ranging from table size to Versailles grandeur. Consider gorgeous "cache pots" which are big ornamental containers you slip other pots into.
We have three indoor plants, but at any time of the year two of them are in a shady spot outside, recovering from the sojourn indoors, while the third looks happily lush as I slip it and its plastic pot into a lovely fat glazed pottery cache pot on the sideboard.
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Cache pots are perfect to display a gift of a pot of cyclamen, NSW Christmas bush, chrysanthemums or most orchids - plants that will survive happily indoors for a few months as long as they spend a large part of the year outside.
This is the time of year that garden centres display their best bird houses, bird feeders (make sure they are designed so birds can't leave their droppings on them), bird baths, and possum houses.
You could add a bag of metallic possum repelling mesh to wrap around tree trunks or pergola posts for any gardener who is tired of the possums devouring every single apricot that the birds haven't got to first.
Consider solar-powered garden lights for just about anyone, to mark the way from the carport to the front door, or to light up the patio so you can look out at your mini rainforest or orchard of potted dwarf apples, peaches, plums while retreating from the heat indoors.
The perfect gift at this time of year is one you open, admire and then can put on a convenient table, in a corner, cupboard, or fridge till the festivities are over, Aunt Agatha has packed up her suitcase and her spaniel, and cases of sunburn, heatstroke, hangovers, fruit cake overload and other sugar highs are happily healed.
This week I am:
- Glorying in the Illawarra flame tree which is still about 10 metres of brilliant scarlet flowers. It's taken about 20 years to be magnificent, but I've finally learned why people rave about Illawarra flame trees.
- Hoping for a few plums and apricots - there was little blossom this year.
- Knowing that I should be planting successions of beans, corn and lettuce, but got getting around to it.
- Pruning back the kiwi fruit again - the vines by the front door grew back more than a metre in 24 hours when I pruned it last week, so it's trying to strangle passers-by again.
- Trimming the grass from the edges of the fences as a snake deterrent.
- Removing the lower dead or browning branches from tree ferns and other ferns as new leaves grow from the top.
- Apologising to the white hydrangeas that have brown tops from too much sun in the last heat wave. But even the sunburned flowers look gorgeous from a distance.
Jackie French
Jackie French is an Australian author, historian, ecologist and honourary wombat (part time), 2014-2015 Australian Children' Laureate and 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. She also writes a gardening column for The Canberra Times.
Jackie French is an Australian author, historian, ecologist and honourary wombat (part time), 2014-2015 Australian Children' Laureate and 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. She also writes a gardening column for The Canberra Times.
