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One of the first articles I published when I started this website was a short guide on what to buy for your friends who love plants.
Yes, it may have been inspired by a conversation in which my own friends were asking what I wanted for my birthday and I kept saying “please, more plants.” They claimed I had plenty (Ha! No such thing!) I was incredulously arguing that would be a mathematical impossibility.
So I wrote a guide on what to buy for people who love plants that isn’t just “more plants.” I included botanical illustrations, books, seeds and even a fairy house kit for the garden.
Even now, years later, that guide (currently at around 30 ideas) gets a lot of traffic around Valentine’s Day and Christmas, but it gets even more popular around Mother’s Day.
Hmm, nice observation, I thought to myself. But why not around Father’s Day? Guys like plants too. And guys love gardening, right?
With this kernel of an idea in mind, I turn to my husband and ask him “what kind of gardening-related gifts would men like?”
I swear, he looked at me as if I had two heads.
“What kind of question is that? The same things you’d like as a gardener,” he replies.
“Cool tools?”
“Sure. But like something really well-made, that shows some craftsmanship. Not cheap stuff I can get at the DIY store and have it break in a year.”
“What else?” I ask, mentally making a list for his birthday.
“Hmm, I need some new gardening gloves. I wonder if they make some cool ones like in Terminator 2.”
“Now we’re talking.” At this point, I pulled out the notepad because the man was getting into specifics.
“And a T-shirt with some fun gardening pun on it. Uuh, maybe The Godfather?”
“What is it with men and The Godfather?” <so happy whenever I can insert a You’ve Got Mail reference>
Anyway, it turns out he was right. Everything this guy wanted as a gardener was what I wanted as a gardener.
Although I did have to draw the line at the Danny DeVito 3D-printed houseplant pots because this is precisely the kind of boundary that is very healthy in a relationship.
I like Danny DeVito as an actor, but I wouldn’t want his head as a centerpiece, thankyouverymuch!
I’ll leave some ideas below. And next time you’re wondering what gift to get for a guy who likes gardening, whether for Father’s Day or any other special occasion, you can start here.
1. Garden glove/arm saver.
Ok, isn’t that a much cooler name than gardening glove? And I might even convince my husband that he has to wear his gardening gloves when he’s pruning the roses when the gloves look like something The Terminator would wear.
There are a few options online, but I like this one from Kenzan Kiev best (ships from Massachusetts). They’re 98 percent cotton with a reinforced thumb and pointer finger.
2. Hori hori knife.
The way I see it, the hori hori knife is a Japanese equivalent of a Swiss army knife. It has everything I could need in the garden without being cumbersome to use.
I can dig with it. I can use it for cutting through roots when I divide perennials and it’s also a useful measuring tool when I plant bulbs due to the markings on the front.
Both sides of the blade are sharp, with one of the sides serrated, so you do need to be extra careful until you get used to manoeuvring it.
The American Gringo (based in California) sells some beautiful hori hori knives with rosewood handles.
While you’re browsing this online shop, have a look at some of the gorgeous pottery they’re selling.
3. Hand-printed T-shirt for gardeners.
There are so many gardening-themed T-shirts to choose from.
Want gardening puns? Plenty of t-shirts.
Cutesy stuff? Yes, those too.
Dad jokes about gardening? Gourd you covered!
But I chose this specific t-shirt design for the gardening lover in your life not just because of the super-cool stylized pea-print, but because of how it’s made.
Blackbird Supply (based in Richmond, Virginia) is a duo that specializes in small-batch, hand-printed apparel and gifts. They don’t outsource any of their production to print-on-demand platforms, but do everything themselves.
You can actually see on their store page the screen printing process and how they make their t-shirts. And I think that’s beautiful and deeply creative.
4. Hand-turned wood dibble.
In the spirit of handcrafted, made in America gifts for gardeners, here’s another gorgeous choice made by Folk Art Wood. All the pieces they sell in the online shop are handcrafted at the Rochester Folk Art Guild, an intentional community and craft center located in the heart of the Finger Lakes in Middlesex, New York.
The dibble is a multi-purpose garden tool that you can use for planting seeds and bulbs. It’s particularly useful when I plant my spring bulbs because they all need to go at different depths. So the markings, at one-inch gradations, make it easy to tell how deep I’m planting.
The digging part is 6 inches long, and the comfortable handle fits the hand, for a total of about 12 inches. The diameter is about an inch. All the wooden tools are turned, sanded and marked by hand, so each one is unique.
In the image, the top one is made out of red elm wood, the middle one is walnut and the lower one is osage orange.
5. Customized metalwork garden sign.
We’ve been meaning to make a gardening sign for the longest time, but that’s just the kind of project that you put on the back burner until winter. And then in winter, you realize that the list of projects you’ve squirreled away for the cold season is in no way a good fit for your energy levels during said season.
So off to the internet we go, to get a personalized garden sign from people who do this for a living.
Langley Metal Works (based in Texas) is a wife-husband duo that creates really cool personalized metal signs out of their workshop south of Dallas. They have so many designs in their shop, it’s really hard to choose a favorite.
But if my husband absolutely had to choose, he said he’d go for the one featuring a beet, a pepper, a carrot, a tomato and … I want to say a radish … aligned at the top.
6. Skin care kit for gardeners.
Before you tell me that guys would never appreciate skin care as a gift, let me just say hahaha.
Ok, now that I got that out of my system, here’s a nice set, specially put together to sooth the hands of a gardener.
A gardener who may or may not remember to wear gardening gloves.
Eucalyptus and tea tree oil soap, gardener’s hand balm and a fingernail scrub brush are all packaged in a nice tin by Wild Violetta. They sell country-wide out of Encinitas, California.
7. Handcrafted gardening tools.
Back to quality, handmade gardening tools, because both my husband and I are obsessed with the buy it for life philosophy. There’s something very satisfying in using a gardening tool ten summers in a row, without said tool breaking, cracking or chipping. I dare you to find that at the dollar store.
Here’s an absolutely gorgeous set that he’s added to his wish list. It’s handmade in Bozeman, Montana using traditional blacksmithing techniques. Steel is heated to a red glow in the forge and then shaped over the anvil with a hammer.
All joinery is done using solid steel rivets. And while the metal is hot, it is burned into the handle creating a long-lasting garden tool with no welds. The handle is turned with a wood lathe from American black walnut. What a thing of beauty. It’s truly an heirloom set that you can leave to future generations of garden lovers.
8. Garden furniture woodworking plans.
Speaking of making things by hand, let me suggest a gift that will keep on giving. Especially if the gardener in your life is very much into woodworking. But they’re also quite overwhelmed with projects and don’t know where to start.
PlansDIYs sells a pack of 40 woodworking plans for garden furniture and accessories that you can download. They publish a new woodworking plan every week, but I think the bundle is a really good deal. It includes everything you could possibly want to build outdoors. From patio tables and benches to all sorts of garden box designs.
I’ll have to stop here because I could keep going for a long time collecting ideas. At this rate, Father’s Day might be over by the time I’m done. But do have a look at my collection of gifts for guys who like gardening for a more updated list, just in case any of the gifts in this article are sold out by the time you get to read it.
And for a wider selection of ideas, have a look at Etsy’s Father’s Day hub. The style editors at Etsy have impeccable taste!
Please note that all the images in this article (with the exception of the featured image at the top) come from the online shops that sell the products.
