Garden gifts for kids: christmas presents

By Daisy Bowie-Sell

Published: Monday, 20 December 2021 at 12:00 am

Getting kids into gardening is no easy task. So try and inspire the children with this range of children’s gifts for Christmas. Below is a range of things we love for a variety of ages that can be made into enticing Christmas presents, and all of them will help to pique their interest in the outside world.

From an old-school flower press, grow-your own kits and bee bricks, our selection of gifts are fun and educational no matter how big or small your outdoor space is.

If you need more inspiration, take a look at our other gift guides on games, memberships and furniture for gardeners too.

Don’t miss our bumper guide to the best gifts for gardeners this Christmas.

Get Me Gardening Watering Can

A classic. Every child with a bit of outdoor space or a couple of containers to look after needs a watering can. Kids love water, so if the plants don’t get a proper soaking, it’s quite likely that they will. The sunny yellow shade of this watering can from Suttons is appealing too, and it comes with a rose attachment to help soften any erratic watering techniques.

Designed in collaboration with the National Trust, it’s a piece of children’s gardening equipment that’s made to last. The can itself is made from rust-resistance galvanised steel with a powder coating. And, with a capacity of 1 litre, children can carry their can quite comfortably.

£14.99. Buy from Suttons.

Children’s Hedgehog Gardening Gloves

Keep their hands free from scuffs and scrapes with a pair of gardening gloves. A lovely Christmas stocking filler for a child of any age, a pair of gardening gloves sets them up for the task at hand.

This blue and orange pair from the National Trust features a hedgehog illustration. They’re soft, durable and machine washable. So, it’ll be easy to keep the gloves looking cheery and bright.

£7.99. Buy from Burgon & Ball.

Mini Flower Press

Combine outdoor adventures with artistic fun in 2022. With a flower press, children can learn how to create beautiful images from flowers and foliage growing in the garden. This one is small and would easily fit into a backpack. Handy for when you need to find ways to entertain them on a Boxing Day walk.

If they already love growing in the garden, this is a fun way for them to preserve their hard work. The set includes a wooden front and back board, 10 sheets of card, 18 blotting paper sheets, and the bolts and nuts needed to hold it all together. The wooden boards at the front and back are left plain, so your child can decorate them however they like.

£8.03. Buy from the Little Crafty Bugs Company.

Sprout Pencils

If you’re looking for an unusual gardening gift that they won’t expect to receive this Christmas, these plantable graphite pencils from Sprout are a great gift idea.

Once the pencils are worn and too short to use, you plant them upside down in soil and wait for them to grow. The pencils can grow into luscious flowers, fragrant herbs and even fresh vegetables.

They are made from sustainable and certified wood and are 100 per cent natural and non-toxic. This packet of eight pencils features a range of seeds, with each pencil indicating what plant it will grow. A brilliant and unusual gift for the gardener who has everything.

£10.95. Buy from Amazon.

Bee Brick

If you’re stumped for gardening gift ideas, this Bee Brick would make a fail-safe choice. Designed by Green and Blue in Cornwall, the Bee Brick is an innovative concrete block, created to support the declining bee population. The concrete brick can be left as a freestanding bee home in the garden or it can be built into a wall for an integrated look.

The bee bricks contain cavities for solitary bees to lay their eggs in safety; their offspring emerge the following spring and the cycle begins again. It’s an eco-friendly gift that would be perfect for a sustainable gardener or a bee-lover.

The bee brick comes with high praise too; it won the Soil Association’s 2014 Innovation Award, sponsored by the Duchy Future Farming Programme.

See here for more tips on how to make a bee-friendly garden

From £19.99. Buy from Crocus.

Tree Vision: Know Your Trees in 30 Cards by Tony Kirkham and Holly Exley

Laurence King Publishing

If you’re looking for gifts for young gardeners or just gardeners wanting to know more about trees, look no further. Both a gardening gift and an educational gift, the card game format will help players learn about a tree’s leaves, seeds, flowers and more in an accessible and fun way. Ash, beech, birch, cedar, hornbeam, juniper, lime, maple, oak, pine, spruce, sycamore, yew are just a few examples of trees that players will soon be able to recognise in a flash!

Each card is beautifully illustrated by Holly Exley and the text is written by Tony Kirkham, Head of Arboretum, Gardens and Horticulture Services at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, so you can rest assured that you’ll be learning from an expert.

£14.99. Buy from Waterstones.

A Bee Grow Bar

No, this isn’t something to help your grow bees, instead it’s the gardening gift for people who care about wildlife but aren’t expert gardeners. Grow Bars makes planting extra easy and curates a series of seeds around themes. This one is catered for making bees happy – and who doesn’t like doing that?

All you do is put the bar in a container, keep it watered and place in a sunny position and eventually the seeds should start to germinate. Once they’ve grown up a bit, you can plant them around the garden. Easy.

The seeds include hyssop, verbena and lavender. A perfect gift for garden lovers and an unusual gardening gift too.

£12. Buy from The Kind Store.

More from our Christmas gift guide

Butterfly seedbomb

A fully biodegradable and very fun gardening gift for kids which is a perfect way of encouraging them to think about the natural world. The bomb holds a host of seeds that butterflies will love; a wildflower mix of plants including Musk Mallow, Birds-foot Trefoil, Yarrow, Oxeye Daisy, Forget-me-not and Red Campion. You can throw the bombs on bare soil and once it has fallen make sure it has natural light and keep it damp.

£4.95. Buy from Amazon.

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Children’s gardening tools

Miniature versions of the real deal, these children’s gardening tools are made from stainless steel and have strong wooden handles to make them light yet sturdy. The spade and forks (13.5cm x 17cm with an overall length of 85cm) are suitable for 6-plus ages and the hand fork and hand trowel (6cm wide head and an overall length 22 cm) for four-plus ages.

From £9.95 to £28.95. Buy from Harrod Horticultural.

We Are the Gardeners

A book that’s perfectly suited for ages 4 to 8, We Are The Gardeners chronicles the adventure of a brand new family garden. The book is a charming and realistic portrayal of the ups and downs of gardening and how it is often hard work but always rewarding. A New York Times bestseller.

£12.99. Buy from Waterstones.

Seed kit for kids

A perfect gift for budding gardeners, which includes sunflower seeds, wildflower seeds, cress seeds, pea seeds. There are four packs of seeds and around 100 wildflowers as part of the pack. You can also expect wooden plant markers, compost discs, activities sheet and a twig pencil. This is a fun and educational kit that’s perfect for gardening beginners and will teach your kids about seed germination, the different parts of a plant and more.

£9.50. Buy from Etsy

The Botanist’s Sticker Anthology

by DK

Gardening is one of the most mindful activities you can do, but over the winter we have to find other activities to keep us busy. If you’re looking for a gift for a busy gardener, a young gardener, or just an arty, nature lover, this sticker anthology should tick your box. Mindful and pleasing on the eye, this sticker anthology is packed full of vintage, intricate botanical drawings; including flowers, ferns, exotic plants and fungi.

Perfect for scrapbook lovers, or gardeners in need of some plant escapism during the colder months, this is a gardening gift that brings nearly as much joy and mindfulness from the act of gardening itself.

£19.99. Buy from Waterstones.

Gardens Illustrated