Last-minute presents are exercising grey cells at the moment. With that and the fact that, every so often, a gardener wants to inspire a non-gardener to try the magic of growing, I was pleased when Find Me a Gift sent for review a choice of gardening kits by Gift Republic Ltd.
OK, so some might be excited at opening a present to find a trowel, gloves and seeds, but I think we all know that many non-gardeners need a bit more encouragement and, noticeably, almost all the kits carefully avoid mentioning the growing an actual plant. Instead you're tempted by the notion to Grow Your Own Chocolate or Grow Your Own Extra Hot Chilli Peppers. The latter has a box guaranteed to make a small boy look twice.
Inside each are 4 coir pots, 4 compost discs, 2 packets of seed and 4 plant markers.
And no instructions.
At this point my inner gardener began to get grumpy. Then I checked the box and found the instructions on the outside. They're brief enough not to scare anyone off. Too brief if you know nothing about growing.
I know nothing about compost discs, so placed one, as instructed, in a pot and added water. Coir pots let the water drain through. My suspicion that a brief immersion would not be enough to expand the compost disc quickly proved correct.
I plunged the pots up to their necks in water, with the discs in them, thus soaking the compost enough to break it apart. Not according to instructions.
"Sow the seed" sounds a simple enough instruction, but there's nothing to tell a non-gardener how deep to sow them. "Keep warm and moist until germination" also sounds simple. How warm? How moist? How long till germination?
You get my drift. Another kit, Grow Your Own Bug-Eating Plants (a different box to that currently on offer) offers Venus flytrap and pitcher plant seeds. This came with a colourful leaflet of games and bug-eating plant facts and a few more instructions, but a search on the web will prove there's more information needed if you're to grow them successfully (Little Shop of Horrors gives details on growing Venus Flytraps) and it's not clear which Pitcher Plant it might be (though I assume it's Sarracenia).
Something that does need to be borne in mind is that these are the products of a non-gardening company. I may find that they all germinate brilliantly, but all the boxes carry the following disclaimer: "The seed can die before or after germination...Due to the varying nature of the conditions that the seed are stored and grown in, neither Gift Republic Ltd nor any other company supplying this gift can accept any liability in relation to any non-performance of the seed."
This is obviously the risk one has to take if one doesn't buy direct from a dedicated gardening company. My grumpiness didn't leave me, though.
One of Husband's abiding memories of childhood is the frustration of being given tools and equipment made especially for children that just didn't work (his particular bug-bear was soon-broken walkie-talkies.) These kits enrolled me in his remembered frustration. If you want to encourage someone to grow something, you want the instructions to be made as foolproof as possible, and the outcome darn near guaranteed.
However, the fun presentation of these boxes might be one way to awaken the interest of a child (or adult) hitherto uninterested in growing things. The Chocolate Daisies (Berlandiera lyrata) are an easy-to-grow perennial and, with a bit of (uninstructed) bottom heat, the chillies shouldn't present a problem.
There is still time to order for Christmas. If you do want to buy this for someone, and you're the only member of the family with experience of seed-raising, then it's certainly offers a chance to pitch in, amaze them with your gardening wisdom, and (maybe with some seeds on standby) help grow something together.
...Landscape Juice Network
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