HAWAI'I GARDENS
Green gifts offer holiday pleasure

By Heidi Bornhorst

It's a perfect time to look around and see what might make good gifts and decor for the holiday season.

Look at little cuties that you could stick in a pot and brighten up with some ingenuity.

Shop for herbs, mini flowering plants, orchids and so on. Get plants that, with a good eye and a little tender loving care, will make for good holiday giving. Look for nice decorative pots and baskets.

Remember there will always be that great architect you work with who will bring you the perfectly wrapped, thoughtfully selected gift from one of her world travels.

Better have something ready to return the thoughtful gesture.

It's best to have some great plants on hand to give away. Contract with a specialty grower for some of those majestic poinsettias. Splurge on a dwarf fruit tree and put it in an attractive pot. Offer to plant it in the ground for the recipient.

Bromeliads are great for gifts and decor because they are easy to grow and come in such a wide variety. Tillandsias are silvery and diverse, and you can do a lot with them.

Think Spanish moss. Dress up a holiday lei with this (always great to add to a store-bought lei or for the finishing touch on one you crafted from your garden.

Bromeliads make great quickly-made living wreaths. The very common neos or neoregelias often have a pink flower in the middle at this time of year, which makes the perfect spot of color in your wreath.

One of my favorite plant gifts (to give or receive) is a nice herb bowl. Nurseries will make these for you, or you can buy them at your favorite garden shop. Who doesn't like herbs nowadays?Ê They are perfect for your foodie friends, and they are also pretty and smell festive.

Another great plant gift is a mini water garden. Buy a nice decorative pot with no puka. Get some water plants; there are many to choose from. Add some guppies, orange moons or other small fish that will eat errant mosquitoes. You have a whole microhabitat for the your pals to enjoy.

Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable landscape consultant. Submit questions to islandlife@honoluluadvertiser.com or Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Letters may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms.