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Dear houseplant aficionado, has this ever happened to you?
About a week before your birthday (or Christmas or Valentine’s Day), you get a call from your beloved friend to ask what you want for said special occasion. We live in a post-Konmari world, of course, so your friends and loved ones know better than to buy you any old trinket. It’s ideal if the gift spark joy.
Let’s imagine the conversation goes like a little bit like this:
Friend: So what do you want for your birthday?
You: Oh, nothing in particular. I really don’t need anything.
Friend: C’mon, since we’re going out for watery margaritas, I really want to get you something.
You: Oh, if you really want to, you can get me a houseplant.
Friend (rolling their eyes): Not another one! You have so many plants already.
You: Duh, that’s the point.
[some amount of eye rolling might still be going on, but you do your best to ignore it]
The conversation may or may not unfurl like this, but it’s usually along the lines of you saying a houseplant would be a nice present for [insert special occasion here] and the other person thinking you don’t neeeeed another one.
Whether you’re the gift recipient, or the person who insists on buying a gift that doesn’t come in dirt, here are a few ideas that are guaranteed to excite your green-thumbed friends.
Well, we don’t really guarantee anything, you know your friend better than we do, we hope.
Small gift: a plant pot
Larger gift: a 3D-printed sustainable plant pot made of plants
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Small gift: a ticket to a botanical garden
Larger gift: a one-year membership to a botanical garden
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Small gift: a macrame plant hanger
Larger gift: a How to make your own macrame workshop (preferably one that you could attend together).
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Small gift: a botanical illustration
Larger gift: a botanical illustration, matted and framed
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Small gift: a second-hand vintage flower pot
Larger gift: a pottery class
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Small gift: a set of botanical temp tattoos
Larger gift: a real plant tattoo, if your friend is thinking of getting one anyway
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Small gift: herb seeds
Larger gift: a planter full of kitchen herbs
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Small gift: a book about houseplants (here is a list of my favorites) or a work of fiction set in the world of plants (my top 5 here)
Larger gift: a fancy coffee table book about houseplants
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Reproduction of tulip illustrations by Carl Linnaeus sold by Spotted Octopus Shop
Small gift: a box of botanical postcards
Larger gift: a set of postcards printed on seeded paper that you can plant
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Small gift: a decorative door for fairies
Larger gift: a fairy house building kit
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Small gift: a juicy colorful succulent
Larger gift: a luscious black houseplant
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Small gift: a glass vessel for a terrarium
Larger gift: a whole terrarium kit
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Small gift: a hanging planter basket
Larger gift: a small plant shelf
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Small gift: a botanical scarf
Larger gift: a botanical tapestry
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Small gift: a seed bomb
Larger gift: going with your friend to a place where you can do some guerilla planting
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Small gift: a vintage watering can
Larger gift: a copper watering can
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Small gift: a vintage vessel they could repurpose as a propagation station
Larger gift: a fancy bamboo propagation station
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Small gift: a herbarium or a botanicum
Larger gift: a trip to a nature park where your friend can start collecting specimens to add to the herbarium.
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Small gift: a botanical jigsaw puzzle
Larger gift: a botanical backpack
There you go, we hope we got you out of that gift-giving pickle. Oh, pickles are also excellent gifts!
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