Down-to-earth gifts

WELL, we’re in the official run into Christmas now, with tomorrow, Dec 8, the day for Christmas shopping to begin in earnest.

And so, too, the perennial search for a gift for the gardener in your life — even if it happens to be you.

If you’re buying for a plant anorak, like myself, and are wracking your brains, trying to think of a plant that they may not have, then let me suggest Mahonia ‘soft caress’. Now, don’t think big, tall, bushy, thorny Mahonia. No, ‘soft caress’ is thornless and low-growing, reaching a height and spread of 40cm x 40cm. Beautiful, soft foliage creates a nearly tropical effect. It is a must-have evergreen shrub for any self-respecting plants-person, flowering earlier than other Mahonias and producing racemes of yellow blooms, as early as August and finishing during November.