Give the joy of flowers with these unique, sustainable Christmas gift ideas for flower and plant lovers.

Gift membership for Gather

First a plug for my own thing

What do you give a flower and plant lover who cares about the environment and doesn’t want more stuff (we’ve all got enough stuff), but wants to be more present to the joy and beauty in her every day?

My digital membership space, Gather, offers an escape from the noise and overwhelm of the modern world, with a library of gorgeous photography and writing about life in my cottage and flower garden through the seasons. 

This isn’t a course, and there isn’t any homework; in fact, there aren’t any shoulds at all in Gather. It’s a place you can go when you want to switch off for a while and browse with a cup of tea (or glass of wine), surrounded by beauty and peace.

I created Gather because I couldn’t find the kind of content I was really craving myself anywhere else—it’s a throwback to the good old days of Instagram when gorgeous stills filled our feeds, no excessive noise or pointing and dancing, just simple beauty. 

I offer gift subscriptions for 3 months, or 6 months so you can choose how much Gather you’d like to give to your loved one. Once you’ve purchased the gift subscription of your choice, you’ll receive an email with a beautiful downloadable PDF with a secret one-time code which unlocks a year of Gather that you can either email or print out and send to your loved one so that they can dive in as soon as they’re ready.

Oh yes, and you can have them with gift hampers if you like.

FFERN

A luxurious gift option for nature lovers: a bottle of Ffern’s natural perfume

Ffern is a gorgeous small batch natural perfume company based near me in Somerset, UK. Their packaging is beautifully minimalist and entirely plastic-free, and their natural fragrances are released in limited edition runs seasonally to members of their client list, known as the Ledger. 

Each bottle costs £79, and you will be billed in advance of the season’s release (you can also purchase a limited supply of existing fragrances), but you can cancel any time you like. Doing business this way helps them know how much perfume to make in each season’s batch, thereby cutting down on waste with each production run—ingenious. 

A wonderful luxury gift idea, whether you’d like to purchase a bottle of perfume as a one-off gift for a friend, or stay signed up to the Ledger so you can get every season’s release (keeping a bottle here and there for yourself, and ensuring an ongoing supply of an utterly gorgeous luxury gift for nature-loving friends and family). 

You can sign up to the waiting list for Ffern’s Ledger list any time, and they’ll let you know as soon as they have an opening for new clients. They ship within the UK and to the USA, but don’t currently ship elsewhere in the world—just something to be aware of when planning your gift-giving.

Full disclosure - I am a fully signed up Ffern customer and I love them so much, I made a film about the Spring 23 release.

Vital seeds vegetable seed collections

For the kitchen gardener, or the gourmet 

Vital seeds are simply the only people I buy vegetable seed from now. I have got to know Fred over the Seed Sovereignty year course I did (and have just passed) and he is a delight. And an absolute fount of knowledge about all things vegetable growing. I adore their seeds so much, I couldn’t even get cross when he started telling me about how they were branching out inro cornflowers.

Cornflowers are notoriously tricky because they all ripen at different times. I have my fingers and toes crossed they don’t find out how blissfully easy sweet peas are.

But I digress. Vital seeds do absolutely fabulous collections of different seeds. Winter lettuces and leafy greens for those who want easy, soul-nourishing food. Chicories for blanching for the hardcore. As well as collections, there is also a digital seed sowing course (I’ve done it, #notgifted) and gift vouchers, if you know some kitchen gardeners but you don’t know what’s on their wish list for the 2024 growing season.

PRINTS BY Emma Lewis

For those with incredible taste, and a love of trees

You may not know, but Emma Lewis did the photography for my new business venture, Grace Alexander Mentoring. I have been such a great fan for quite a while now (she took the loveliest picture of my stairs many years ago) and my interest in her work was re-sparked by listening to a lovely podcast she did with the Caro podcast.

She talked so thoughtfully about photographing trees, asking their consent, and then just sitting with them a little while. Out of this process came some utterly wonderful, dramatic, prints of leaves.

I’m saving up for a beech leaf. Or hoping I find one rolled up in my stocking.

Socks

Elevating the boring to the extraordinary

Talking of stockings, and I know I’m missing the point, but I don’t think it’s Christmas unless you have given or received some socks. My absolute find of the year was an accidental one. I treated myself to some Blundstones and I just happened to be seduced into adding a pair of socks to my basket. Once you’ve paid that much for a pair of boots (I look back fondly on the time when I worked on a ranch in Australia, and we had Blundstones and Redbacks practically on tap), a pair of socks is neither here nor there.

These socks are here though. Warm, tough, properly thick without being the slightest bit stiff. I have used them inside wellingtons and as bed socks. They are just the ultimate.

They are also out of stock for all the lovely mossy green ones, but for this sort of luxury, I’ll happily have charcoal.

 Rag of Colts

A once in a lifetime sort of Christmas present

I had to think long and hard about including Rag of Colts in this gift guide. On the downside, Caroline sells her bags so fast that there are so rarely any in stock; they literally fly off the workbench, On the upside, she now has an actual physical shop in Bruton and that means that she has joined up with some other independent makers and brands, including her mother, who makes the most incredible indigo dresses.

Her bags are such a work of art that they are seriously high end, but I am asking my husband to splash out on one of her belts for my Christmas present.

 La-Eva

A psychological treat

I have to confess that I am not unbiased when it comes to La-Eva. Its founder, Louisa, was a Clinical Psychologist (was? Is? Can one ever stop being a psychologist?) before La-Eva took off, and as a result, I sense that the ethos of her products goes beyond the usual greenwashing, wellness narrative.

Despite being lazy to the point of austere in the pampering realm, I do happen to own a bottle of their Roseum body lotion. A bottle of this would make a lovely present, but they do also happen to do beautiful gift boxes if you happen to have a loved one you love very much indeed.

Comments open if you would like to add your own fabulous ideas for this tricky gifting season. Full disclosure, I am only doing presents for my husband this year (spoiler alert, it’s an investment piece Arthur Beale jumper) but any gift ideas for men gratefully received. So tricky.