If you have a person on your list who is hard to buy for , (and who doesn’t?) think about a bonsai tree.  As an original idea, a bonsai is a wonderful example of a gift with lasting appeal. It is a gift with meaning and a history. It is more than just  a piece of art.  It might be the start  a lifelong hobby.

A bonsai tree is an all-natural, ecologically friendly gift.  And maybe best of all, every single bonsai is unique to start with and will become ever more so the longer it is kept. It’s true that some bonsai are worth thousands of dollars, but no one needs to spend that kind of money. It’s easy to find many lovely trees from specialized greenhouses or online for less than a hundred dollars.

The best news is that you don’t need the emerald green-thumb voodoo gift to keep a bonsai alive although it is true that there are some trees that are rare and incredibly valuable and difficult to care for.  Some trees require a considerable amount of attention and expertise and if you’re living in a cold climate, preparing an outdoor tree for the winter can be a challenge. But there are also many, many bonsai  that are easy to care for.

For the uninitiated, an easy to care for bonsai that will survive inside during the winter like any other “houseplant” is probably the best place to start. All you need to know for sure, if you’re buying a bonsai as a gift, is that your friend has somewhere to put it where it will get bright but not direct light. A big south or west facing window is, in my opinion, a necessity. If you’re thinking of buying a tree for your spouse, I’m hoping that you’ll be able to see if there might be a spot for it.

That’s pretty general information and it might not seem very helpful when you’re looking a list of trees with their botanic and common names.  So, let me help you narrow it down to some of the best beginner bonsai trees.

1. Juniper

2. Schefflera Arboricola

3. Ficus

4. Mini or Dwarf Jade – Portulacaria

5. Fukien Tea

Juniper – (juniper procumbens “nana”) The most popular bonsai in North America is the Juniper and if you buy one as a gift, unless you’re buying it for someone who already has a lot of bonsai, you need to stick with Juniper Procumbens. This is a specific type of Juniper that is ideally suited to bonsai, very easy to grow and can be brought indoors. There are some Junipers – for example the Chinese Juniper – Juniper chinensis- which cannot be brought inside, so don’t be fooled.

Schefflera Arboricola – Whether you realize it or not, you’ve seen this tree as a houseplant, or in a restaurant or office. There are a lot of them around.  Most usually known as the Dwarf Umbrella Tree, this small version of the very popular houseplant is an interesting and easy to care for bonsai. Unlike the Juniper, this bonsai doesn’t look all that Japanese, but it does look very tropical- almost jungle like and any friend you have, particularly one who likes houseplants, will be thrilled with this unique exotic version.

Ficus – There are many different types of Ficus, more recognizably known as Figs. My favorite as a bonsai gift is the Tiger bark Fig, because it’s easy to grow, with a very interesting trunk shape and bark and – well – it looks like a bonsai. Other well known fig bonsai that make good gifts are the Benjamina and the Ginseng Fig (especially good for friends with a taste for the unusual). As a first bonsai gift I should warn you that both the Green Island and the Narrow Leaf Figs are a little trickier to grow. The one thing that everyone should know about figs is that they tend to drop leaves when they’re stressed and they can be stressed very easily. However, they will grow back! Don’t give up.

Mini Jade/ Dwarf Jade – This is my personal favorite bonsai gift for people who have never grown a bonsai before. The correct name is Portulacaria afra and it’s a South African native, but since so many are familiar with Jade trees as houseplants, the Mini Jade or Dwarf Jade is probably a better name. Here’s another bonsai that will drop its leaves if it gets too stressed, but again they easily grow back and this might very well be the number one easy-to-grow bonsai. Mini jades – like their full sized namesake are also very attractive in an exotic and quite unique way. Their rounded, very fleshy leaves look like something a dinosaur would have hidden behind, although in the case the mini jade it would be a very small one. While you cannot ever let any bonsai completely dry out, I’ve found jades to be among the more forgiving of little watering slip-ups. That alone would qualify them for this list, but you’ll find that with their tiny leaves and remarkably tree-like appearance for something so small, the mini jade bonsai makes an outstanding gift bonsai.

Fukien Tea – I add this tree to the list of great gift bonsai because as far as tropical trees are concerned, Fukien Tea (sometimes called Fujian Tea) is among the classic bonsai. It needs to be kept warm and never allowed to dry out and for some reason it is very attractive to insect pests. But with its tiny-perfect, shiny, dark green leaves, white flowers and red berries, this tree is a bonsai for bonsai lovers. For anyone who treasures the classics – in anything – this is a gift they will never forget.

I said Five Bonsai, so I have to stop there, which is a shame because already I want to add in the Chinese Elm and the Zelkova and the Sweet Plum and then move to the slightly more advanced “winter outside” group of bonsai, but where you live strongly influences just how difficult an outdoor wintering tree can be. But with this list, you’re off to a spectacular head start on the gift list to end all gift lists!

Attention frustrated gardeners. Do you work out of your home for too many hours every day? Do you live in an urban condo, apartment or townhouse with no place to dig a garden? Are you waiting for the chance to grow a garden? Well, you don’t need to wait any longer.

If you have a balcony or a patio or deck or even a postage stamp sized backyard there is only one non-negotiable requirement to grow your own vegetables. What you need is light. You need a spot with at least 5 hours of direct sunlight every day – unless you want to bring it all indoors and grow them under lights – and come to think of it – if you want – I can show you how to do that.

There is nothing you can do that is more in keeping with a long list of “it’s about time” trends than sweep off your deck or balcony take out some containers and use them to grow organic produce for your own table. Not only is it tastier than what you’ll buy in the store, it’s waiting for you, literally on your doorstep. Besides, when you release your hidden gardener, you might also find out why gardening is such a hugely popular hobby. It’s a calming, infinitely rewarding pastime that you might fall in love with. I did.

I started my first garden when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Everything died, from a combination of ignorance, neglect and the simple fact that my dad, anticipating my possible shortfalls as a beginner gardener allotted me a corner of the yard that were missing both rain and sun. I didn’t really care and over the years kept trying.

Right now I’m living in rental accommodations and don’t have any ground to call my own. I stopped putting gardens into my landlord’s yard because every time I moved I got to watch the next tenant kill my labor of love and I swore I’d never do it again. But, recently my interest in vegetable gardening was rekindled when I discovered an awesome technique for growing vegetables in containers. Using a gravity-fed, hydroponic system that is almost criminally easy to maintain, I harvested a wealth of peppers, tomatoes and simply the best salad greens that I’ve ever enjoyed and it was 100% organic.

If you’re still reading, I’m gathering that the idea interests you. So stay with me and I’ll tell you exactly how to do it…..although it’s going to take a few articles.

Step 1

How to Choose What to Grow

While there are a lot of things that can easily be grown in containers, some plants don’t do nearly so well. Luckily, the most popular vegetables including tomatoes, peppers and salad greens are excellent choices. I’m devoted to indeterminate tomatoes – that’s the kind that grow as a vine, as opposed to a bush. Yes you need to tie them up but having grown the special patio tomatoes in the past; I will personally never waste my time or my very precious space on them again.

I’ve also had decent luck with cucumbers although not such great results with squash. I don’t think they cared much for getting their roots cramped and any plant that needs a root run the size of Oklahoma will not be a great choice for containers.

Peas will do well, although they are a fairly short season crop and even more so given the extra warmth they’re experience in a container. If you’re going to grow beans – I’d suggest going with the pole beans even though I’m not sure they’re quite as tender as the bush variety, but the simple truth is that the bush beans just don’t give you the return on your space and seeding progressive crops is not as practical in a container garden as when you have lots of room in the ground.

Corn is a non starter and similarly I would also stay away from broccoli, cauliflower, and sprouts – something for which my son is eternally grateful. You also don’t want to try anything that has serious rambling issues like watermelon and I don’t recommend root crops either – meaning carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, turnips, radishes or parsnips. You can’t grow asparagus in containers either.

If you don’t know anything about growing vegetables and you’ve never done it before, advice like “vines are good” isn’t going to be much help. So maybe I should step back for a minute and approach this question from a different perspective. Try this on for size, “grow what you can’t easily buy”.

Yes, you can buy tomatoes – but the tomatoes you can buy in the stores have been selected for qualities which appeal to agri-business. For example – tomatoes that are going to be trucked across half a continent – or more- need to have fairly tough skins so they don’t get mashed to a pulp – yummmmmmy. They need to be picked when they’re green and ripen in a truck. They need to stand up well to refrigeration. They need to be uniformly sized so that they pack well and display easily in a grocery store. If you’re growing your own tomatoes – none of these things matter!

You can have plum tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, beefsteak sized tomatoes, grape tomatoes in a range of colors and sweetness levels that will simply amaze you. If you’re not a gardener already, then you’re probably not familiar with the craze that is heirloom vegetables. Oh what a wonderful surprise you have in store. I grow lots of tomatoes – surprisingly I’m not a huge fan of big chunks of tomato. But I love little grape tomatoes in Greek salads and I’ve found that oven dried cherry tomatoes packed in olive oil with basil are like eating candy.

Peppers are terrific – because there are so many different kinds of them – especially if you like hot peppers.

Salad greens – Mesclun mix – Baby salad greens – you know the ones I mean. They cost about 16 bucks a kilo and 9 times out of 10 the ones in the grocery store have already started to wilt. I don’t know about man – but woman cannot live on iceberg alone!

Other great small space crops include Chinese greens, eggplant, kale, spinach and Swiss chard. And then of course a simply wonderful idea is to also grow herbs – some of which – like parsley and cilantro also make great salad greens.  Basil is another example of a crop available in a mind numbing variety. I love Thai basil.

Oregano, thyme, chives, tarragon, marjoram and sage are all perennial herbs, which mean that they will live from year to year. Sadly, that makes them a not too good choice for a container garden since plants which can survive the (Toronto) winters in the ground will not necessarily do so in a container on a balcony. Ironically, rosemary, which is also perennial but one too tender to survive the Toronto winters in the ground can easily spend those winters on a windowsill and go back out next spring.

But what I’ll say right now is, “if you really want a perennial herb, and it’s easy for you to find the plants, give them a try and we’ll touch back on the subject before the fall of 2010 and talk about how you can get them through the winter. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

To help you begin to make your decision about what you might want to grow, here is a list of websites that offer herb and vegetable seeds. Take a look at what they have to offer and make some choices – you’ll probably choose too many, but that’s ok. You haven’t ordered them yet.

http://www.heirloomtomatoes.bizland.com/

http://eternalseed.ca/index.php?ID=1&Lang=En Canada only

http://victoryseeds.com/

http://www.seedsavers.org/

http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/seed_menu.html

http://www.heritageharvestseed.com/

http://www.uharvest.ca/zenstore/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=21

http://www.richters.com/

http://www.stokeseeds.com/cgi-bin/StokesSeeds.storefront

http://www.dominion-seed-house.com/en-CA

Now, if you’re thinking that come spring, almost every grocery store in the city will be offering trays of little vegetable plants that you can grow, you’re absolutely right. Some of them will have a simply excellent range of choices too and if you want to go that route, you certainly can. But at some point you’ll probably want to grow something that you can’t find unless you start it yourself. So for now, you don’t need to make an absolute decision, check out the seeds and if you’re just not ready to make this leap yet, you can always start with pre-started plants.