The holiday countdown is on! If you’re on the prowl for easy grab-and-go gifts for your friends and family, we’ve got you covered! We’ve put together a few of our favorite last-minute gifts that are sure to be a hit with the gardeners in your life. Shopping has never been easier!

Poinsettia

A beautiful holiday classic, you can’t go wrong with a festive poinsettia to bring your loved ones some joy and cheer. To make things easy, you can pair your gift with one of our self-watering containers (pictured above). Click here for additional poinsettia care tips.

Houseplants

Of course, poinsettias aren’t your only houseplant choice for holiday gift-giving. With the weather turning cloudy and gray, there’s nothing better than receiving a fresh, colorful plant that can be enjoyed well past the holidays. For some inspiration, check out our festive houseplant round-up.

Gardening Tools

Whether the gardener in your life is a beginner or expert, you can’t go wrong with a collection of useful tools. Consider a trowel combined with a kneeling pad, some gloves, a watering can, and seeds to give your gardener everything they’ll need in the spring.

Sloggers

Do you know someone who gardens no matter the conditions? For the messy gardener in your life, slogger footwear is just the thing to tackle those dirty projects where a waterproof finish is a must.

Scented Soaps

As we love to tell everyone, gardening is messy! So what better way to clean up after those messy jobs than with some of our luxurious fragrant scented soaps and hand creams. These make great stocking stuffers!

Gift Cards

Still not sure what to get? For the gardener that seemingly has everything, you can’t go wrong with a Van Wilgen’s gift card. Pick one up in the store, over the phone, or online.

Here at Van Wilgen’s, we want to make your holiday as easy and as stress-free as possible. Unlike other tree farms and garden centers, we offer a range of services to make your holiday worry-free so you can focus on enjoying the holiday! Here’s what you can look forward to this holiday season:

Hands-on Tree Service

We’ll help you cut, bail, and tie your perfect tree to your car for the ride home. We’ll even deliver it to the parking lot for you if it’s too heavy to carry! In a rush? We also have a selection of pre-cut trees for your convenience.

Custom Wreath and Bow Making

We love Christmas and we want you to celebrate the joy of the season just like us! Our courtyard is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. We’re busy crafting all kinds of decorations. Wreaths, bows, tree toppers, swags, and garlands, the list is endless. Come in and we can make a unique wreath to order for any color scheme or theme.

Van Wilgen Grown Poinsettias

Not your average Poinsettia! From the new ‘Princettia’ to the classic reds and whites, we have a variety of colors and sizes to choose from. Need to wrap it up as a gift? No problem, from classic wrap to stylish self-watering pot colors we have lots of festive choices.

…and found a pantry pest

“Fa la la la la…la la la la”, Mother Hubbard was happily singing a Christmas song as she went to her cupboard to pull out the secret ingredients for her famous Cranberry bread. As she was mid-tune, with mouth wide open, something awful happened. “Fa la la la… gasp, gulp, cough”. Mother Hubbard rushed to the sink in hopes of extracting what she had accidentally swallowed. What was that horrible thing that flew into her mouth, interrupting her jolly Christmas melody?!

Poor Mother Hubbard was terribly flustered but managed to pull herself together and make her way back to the cupboard. Very slowly, she creaked open the door in hopes of not being taken by surprise again. 1, 2, 3, out they flew. Mother Hubbard screamed. Her cupboard had been invaded. She wondered what those terrible pests could be?! She mustered up her bravery and looked one more time. She saw the pests fluttering around but she calmed when she saw they were just innocent moths…or are they?

Poor Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was infested with pantry pests, most likely Indian Meal Moths or Mediterranean Flour Moths. They are not that innocent. They come into your home on unsuspecting groceries and have a party in your pantry. They hitchhike on dried goods, grains, flour, pasta, cereal, cornmeal, rice, crackers, nuts, dried fruit, powdered milk, nuts, and even our precious chocolate. They also like pet food and birdseed. Mother Hubbard has another project ahead of her besides making cranberry bread. She now has to go through every product in her cupboard and search for these little critters. If I was visiting with Mother Hubbard I would tell her to look for certain signs of infestation such as; webbing inside of the food, on the lids, and the sides of boxes. Another unpleasant thing to search for is the maggot larvae. They look like little grains of rice. Once the inspection is done and critters are found, it is time for Mother Hubbard to throw out all infested foods into a sealed plastic bag and get it to the dump.

Mother Hubbard’s inspection is not over yet. She needs to search for the adult moth. They are grayish to coppery brown, often banded, small, and very narrow. They can be seen fluttering at night in a drunken, zig-zag pattern or tucked into the corners of the cupboard ceiling and walls. Clean the ceiling, walls, and shelves with bleach and warm water to eliminate any hiding adults or pupae.

Now that Mother Hubbard’s cupboard is sparkling clean and all the infested foods have been thrown away, Mother Hubbard needs to place The Pantry Pest Trap by Safer in her cupboard. This all-natural trap uses powerful pheromones to lure the adult moths to it. She will need to replace the traps every 3 months. This will help to keep her cupboard pest-free.

Mother Hubbard did not get to make her famous cranberry bread today but at least she does not have to worry about swallowing any more pantry pests. She went to the grocery store to buy all new ingredients for her Christmas bread and belted out a holiday song the entire way. “Tis the season to be jolly. Fa la la la la la la la la”.

Come see us at Van Wilgen’s. We would love to help!

We know holiday gift shopping can be tiring. If time is tight, you might see gift cards as an attractive go-to option. But if you’re looking for something a little more meaningful, we’ve got you covered. We’re offering a few pre-assembled gift card options for the gardener or plant lover in your life. Make shopping easy with our Gardener Kit which contains, a flower seed packet, work gloves, plantable pots, and a trowel all inside a handy holiday planter. Pair it with a gift card (value of your choice) for a meaningful gift anyone will love. We also have 6″ Poinsettia plants in self-watering containers, already assembled with a gift card for a bright gift that keeps on giving. Stop by and pick one up today. It’s that easy!

Each year we gather a few of our favorite things together in an effort to help you find your loved ones the perfect gift!

This year our list includes:

A unique custom basket for the person who loves to decorate for the holidays.

A locally made, soy, wood-wick candle with pine needles to make any home smell festive and fragrant.

A custom holiday planter containing poinsettia plants, frosty ferns, and a tree-shaped rosemary plant.

Fun, festive, light-up snowman decorations.

A gardening trowel with a built-in beer opener.

Or a compact, collapsible shovel for easy storage (perfect for emergencies).

For more ideas stop by the Garden Center and we’ll help you find the perfect gift!

You can also check out these recommendations in our video.

Feeling creative? You can fill your own window box, urn, or barrel with our assortment of fresh bunched greens. Don’t forget to add a colorful branch of winterberry or choose from any pick located inside our Christmas store.