Delight the gardeners in your life this Christmas. Mandy Bradshaw has uncovered some gorgeous gift ideas
BECOME A BEEKEEPER
Gardeners have an important role when it comes to protecting our bees. Planting for pollinators is one way to help, but keeping a beehive is another and a Buzz Box Starter Pack makes it really easy.
Designed by Buzz Into Beekeeping founder Mark Meadows, it has everything you need – apart from the bees!
The kits have a UK National hive, protective suit and gloves, smoker, feeder, hive tool—and a clear, practical guide giving advice on how to get started, where to source bees, where to place your hive, and how to care for the colony. There are also instructions on how to assemble the hives.
One of the unique features of the Buzz Box hive is the Perspex windows that make it possible to watch the bees on the comb going about their business, without needing to get into a beekeeping suit!
Mark explains that while the threats to wild bees from habitat loss, pesticides and climate change are now recognised, the UK has far fewer beekeepers than our European neighbours.
‘This shortage matters,’ he says. ‘With wild colonies under increasing pressure, managed hives play a vital role in supporting pollination, food production, and the wider environment. More people taking up beekeeping here in the UK would make a real difference.
‘Whether gifting the Buzz Box to yourself or someone else, you’ll be helping more bees, helping biodiversity—and bringing home honey at the end of it.’
More details are available at sales@buzzintobeekeeping.co.uk. The starter box is £495 and is available at Burford Garden Company or online.
WILDFLOWER ILLUSTRATION
Bring the garden indoors with prints and stationery inspired by flowers from Wildflower Illustration Co.
Husband and wife team Rebecca and Karl McMillan produce original cards, writing paper and prints from Rebecca’s watercolours. These are then printed, packaged and hand-finished by Karl in their Cheltenham studio.
‘In an increasingly digital world, we hope our cards and stationery will spread a little joy on doormats around the world,’ says Rebecca.
Among their plant-related gifts are the Potting Shed Print (£20), The Kitchen Garden collection of cards and stickers (£15.50) and Petals and Pollinators, a limited edition print (from £35).
They can be bought from www.wildflowerillustrationco.com or from the shop in Suffolk Parade, Cheltenham.
FEED THE BIRDS
Feeding birds over the winter is a great way of encouraging Nature’s pest controllers into your garden. All too often though this results in scruffy plastic bags of seed that spill their contents over a cupboard.
Burgon & Ball have a container that solves the storage problem and looks good enough to have on display.
Made from moulded steel, it has no seams, giving it an elegant appearance, and is powder coated in a truffle brown with a contrasting lid. Leather handles make it easy to move around and there’s an aluminium scoop for dishing out food.
It’s priced at £24.99 and is available online at Burgon & Ball or from local stockists.
A PIECE OF KEW
There’s a rare chance to own a little bit of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew with a limited edition of homeware made from their trees.
Every gardener hates felling trees but sometimes it’s unavoidable. The team at Kew have ensured those that are lost due to damage, disease or necessary sustainable management now have a new lease of life.
Woodworkers Selwyn House have turned the wood into pieces that include butter knives and bowls with each one hallmarked so that you can trace it back to the tree used and why it was felled. The wood used includes butternut, hackberry and box and each piece is unique.
The range is available at Kew Gardens and online at www.shop.kew.org
DAMSON FARM
The country garden at Damson Farm on the edge of the Cotswolds is the setting for a series of workshops on growing.
Learn how to make natural garden supports, what to grow for cut flowers or how to rewild your garden.
The farm near Bath is run by former garden designer Alison Jenkins as a regenerative smallholding and edible garden.
Workshops are led by experts and run from 10am to 4pm. They include lunch and morning and afternoon refreshments.
They cost £150 and can be booked at alisonjenkins.co.uk where there are details of all workshops for 2026. Gift vouchers are available.
GARDENING BOOKS
More garden gates have been pushed open in an updated edition of The Secret Gardeners by Cotswold author Victoria Summerley.
The colourful Oxfordshire garden of Great British Bake Off star Prue Leith, actor Dominic West’s hand-dug natural swimming pool and the flower garden at Jeremy Clarkson’s farm are among those added to a garden tour that includes the outside spaces of Jeremy Irons, Sting and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Beautifully illustrated with photographs by Hugo Rittson Thomas, it is published by Frances Lincoln and priced at £35.
In Diary of a Keen Gardener, Cotswold garden designer and writer Mary Keen takes us through a year in her favourite garden: her own.
It is a starting point for what she describes as a ‘celebration of the ordinary, the ephemeral and the useful . . . a patchwork of thoughts and tasks and life’.
These include the problem of trying to introduce a wildlife-friendly garden in her village, growing tomatoes and colour combinations for plants.
The book ends with a list of the plants Mary grows in her garden and allotment, divided into seasons and with helpful cultivation observations.
A different style of diary is on offer in The National Trust Gardener’s Almanac 2026 by Greg Loades.
It’s packed with useful information for each month, ranging from average temperatures and essential jobs to what to weed and what should be in flower.
There are annual events listed, suggestions of what wildlife to look out for, a gardener’s checklist and space for you to add notes.
It’s published by HarperCollins priced at £9.99.
Illustrator Johanna Basford combines the beauty of flowers and the mindfulness of colouring in her latest book Wonderful Wildflowers.
Her pen and ink drawings cover familiar wildflowers including thistles, poppies and bluebells along with birds and insects.
The pages range from country scenes to individual flowers and intricate patterns made up of petals all waiting to be coloured in while hidden in the book are a Plant Hunter’s List of twelve ‘magical wildflowers’ to discover.
It is published by Ebury Press priced at £16.99.
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