Garden Gift Ideas

If you're having trouble finding gifts for gardening friends or loved ones, here are a few ideas:

Supremely adapted roses. Search the internet to find the best-adapted roses for where ever your recipient lives, and then give those varieties as a gift. Places to start your research include the American Rose Society, which provides useful links, including links to local chapters that offer time-tested variety recommendations. Also look to local arboretums or botanic gardens or state cooperative extension offices. Examples of what you might end up with include the best hardy roses for cold-winter climates, Earthkind roses for Texas or disease-resistant varieties for the Southeast.

Next go to www.findmyroses.com, which also has great rose links, to find sources for the varieties you have selected. Then send a card to the recipient with a note about how you found the roses and why they are perfect for his or her garden.

Quality Tools. Whether it’s pruning or digging, nothing feels better than gardening with high quality tools. They also last forever and are a constant reminder of the gift-giver. Most garden centers and nurseries carry a good supply of quality garden tools, but you won't find them on sale or in the bargain bins. Quality tools may be at least two to three times more expensive than lower quality tools, but they are worth the price, and you’ll be able to feel the quality in your hands. For the largest selection of gardening tools, shop online. Of the many good choices, we like:
www.gardentoolsforallseasons.com
www.gardenhardware.com

American Rose Society Membership. Go to www.ars.org to find out about all the great benefits of being a member of the ARS, including a subscription to American Rose Magazine.

Borrow from Nature for Christmas Decorations

Even if the ground is frozen or covered with snow, you can still collect from nature or your garden to enliven your Christmas decorations. Try mixing prunings of needled evergreens, fruiting or variegated plants around your poinsettias or other Christmas plants. It will bring a bit of nature’s beauty indoors and soften brightly colored plants. You might even place some on your Christmas tree. Try spray painting bare branches from deciduous trees or shrubs and using them as decoration. A touch of white, silver or gold branches can be an interesting contrast to the soft-textured foliage of a Christmas tree. Pine cones can also be spray painted.

Some plants you might use for their berries (depending on where you live) include hollies, cottoneasters, dogwoods, beautyberry, barberries, hawthorn, crabapples, viburnums and roses (hips). In mild-winter climates, you can also try citrus and pomegranates. Also keep an eye out for the dried blooms of ornamental grasses. Dried arrangements can be stunning, even when done very simply with branches, fallen leaves and a few fruit.

Sharpen your pruning shears, use some imagination and you'll be surprised what the winter landscape has to offer.

Keep Your Christmas Tree Fresh

There are a number of things you can do to keep your Christmas tree fresh and fragrant this holiday season. First, buy the freshest tree you can find. Check freshness by bending the needles. They should be soft and pliable, not crisp and dry. Avoid trees that are already dropping a lot of needles.

Once you get the tree home, saw off an inch from the bottom of the trunk and set it in a bucket of water. Keep the tree in a cool, shady spot until you're ready to bring it indoors.

When it's time for the tree to come inside, saw off another inch from the bottom of the trunk and place it in a stand with a water reservoir. Keep the reservoir full; it may need to be checked daily. Display the tree away from heaters and vents.

This Year's Best New Roses to be Featured on the Bayer Advanced Float

The All-American Rose Selections (AARS) is a nonprofit organization that promotes the best new rose varieties. AARS award winners have been evaluated around the country in an extensive two-year testing program, which judges everything from disease resistance to flower production to color and fragrance. Three outstanding roses were chosen for 2007, and they will be featured on the Bayer Advanced Float in this year's Tournament of Roses. Look for them in rose catalogs, nurseries and garden centers this winter and spring.

'Strike It Rich' is a glorious, deep golden-yellow grandiflora swirled with a touch of red. The double flowers have an intense, spicy fragrance and are born in clusters on long stems that are great for cutting. The tall, vigorous bush has excellent disease resistance.

'Rainbow Knock Out' (pictured) is the latest addition to the versatile family of Knock Out roses. Touted as even more disease-resistant than its parent 'Knock Out', this small shrub rose bears single, deep coral-pink blooms with yellow centers. Generous-blooming and compact, ‘Rainbow Knock Out’ is an excellent landscape rose and perfect for containers.

'Moondance' is a lovely, white-flowering floribunda with a delightfully, spicy fragrance. The large flower clusters are held above very dark green, disease-resistant foliage. The upright plant is free-blooming and an exceptional landscape plant.

To get your new roses off to the best possible start, plant in full sun and well-drained soil. To fertilize and protect from insects and disease, use Bayer Advanced™ All-In-One Rose & Flower Care Concentrate just as the plants begin to grow next spring. One application feeds and protects for up to six weeks.