Green Holiday Gifts
by Pamela Kock

Now is the time to begin preparation for the holiday gift-giving season, and it’s not too late to prepare some homemade gifts of greenery! This is a terrific project for children to do. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Take a look at your collection of houseplants. Do you have some easy, fast growing varieties, or large plants that can be divided? The most obvious example is the spider plant. The “babies” that grow from the main plant can be rooted easily. You can snip them off and pot them, or to be safe, pot them while they’re still attached and separate them after a couple of weeks, giving them a chance to grow roots. Pothos and philodendrons are easy to propagate too. Snip off a three to six inch section of the stem and tuck the cut part into a small pot. Pot several cuttings together to make the gift more attractive. Peace lilies, Boston ferns, and aloe plants are good candidates for division. Remove them from their pots, cut through the root ball with a sharp knife or ease the sections apart, and place them in new pots. These new plants may not look very good now, but if nurtured properly it won’t take long for them to settle into their new homes.

If you don’t have candidates in your home, or don’t want to risk the plants you already have, visit a garden center. You will find a variety of houseplants in unattractive plastic pots. If you purchase them now, there will be lots of time to experiment with cuttings, pot arrangements, and to adapt them to life in the home environment so they won’t go into shock as soon as your recipient gets them.

Containers come in all shapes and sizes. You might find a beautiful container and put together an arrangement of different plants, or use your artistic ability to create your own. Take an ordinary terra-cotta pot and spray paint it with glitter, paint it by hand, or decorate it by gluing objects such as pebbles, buttons, or shells. Be creative. Try unique containers. Any container will do, as long as it has holes for drainage. If there aren’t any holes, and it’s impractical to make them, pot the plant in a plain plastic pot with drainage holes inside the other container. If using a basket, a plastic sandwich or storage bag around the plastic pot will make a good liner.

It’s a good idea to give your plant with a care tag, especially if your recipient isn’t already a houseplant aficionado. Include requirements for light and water, and let them know if you’ve potted the plant with soil that has fertilizer already mixed in. This could be an additional element of presentation, made with attractive paper and tied onto the pot with a piece of ribbon or metallic string.

Transporting your gift plants to their new home may require some care, since it’s likely they’ll be exposed to cold winter air along the way. You could place the plant in a box and wrap it like any other gift, if it won’t stay there long. Or you can place it in a paper grocery bag with the top crimped – anything that will insulate it from frigid air on the journey.

Gift plants are an inexpensive way to spread holiday cheer, and can be personalized and customized as much as you desire. This is a gift that will spread joy long after the holidays are over.

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