Great woodland wildlife garden gift ideas
Birder gifts are both functional and serve as garden art accessories
Birders are an easy lot to satisfy. Give them a pair of binoculars, a comfortable chair near a bird feeder and maybe a glass of wine or a coffee and most of us are good for the day.
That doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the finer things in life, it’s just that these finer things usually revolve around birds – birdwatching, birdfeeding … maybe a good bird guide.
So, shopping for the birder in your life (or maybe even yourself) usually involves heading out to the local birding store.
Since birding is now mainstream, there are exceptional high-end bird items available in many specialty home stores that might not be the first place you think of shopping at when it comes to gifts for the backyard bird enthusiasts. If you are out shopping for bird enthusiasts or even just gardeners, think copper bird baths, bird houses and other forms of garden art.
One of my favourite on-line retailers is Gardener’s Supply Company. It’s based in Maine Vermont but its on-line site offers delivery in the United States and Canada (depending on the products). If in doubt, check with the on-line store first to ensure they will deliver the products you want.
Also, check out places like Etsy and other online shopping venues where you can easily focus in on local artisans for outstanding, homemade bird feeding and bird watching ideas.
Another favourite is Viva Terra. It’s not hard to spend a lot of time going through Viva Terra’s web site just to get ideas and admire all they have to offer, whether it is for the birds in your woodland wildlife garden or simply for the home.
Their outdoor patio and garden products are as beautiful and sophisticated as their indoor offerings.
The Ceramic Ring Bird Feeder would be a welcome addition to any woodland garden.
Viva Terra, brings together exquisite products that meld rustic design with exquisite style. Its focus is not on birds but it does have some beautiful and useful gifts for birders. The on-line store’s home products will also appeal to Ferns & Feathers readers looking to bring their woodland experience indoors.
Here are just a few of the exceptional gift ideas for bird lovers from Viva Terra. They make the perfect Mother’s Day gift for mom’s who like the finer things in life.
Ceramic Ring Bird Feeder – Blue Terrazzo: Bringing together art and utility in the form of an elegant ceramic bird feeder that you’ll want to hang from a tree branch as close to your favourite sitting area as possible. This artisan, hand-built ceramic clay bird feeder protects the birdseed from inclement weather, while allowing birds to feed from two open sides. The removable lid makes it easy to clean and refill with seed and the 4-inch cord and hook makes it easy to find the perfect branch or garden hook to hang it from.
Solid copper birdbath with twig metal stake: It’s hard not to love the sophistication of a copper bird bath aging gracefully in the woodland garden.
Not only is it a beautiful piece of garden art, the antimicrobial qualities of copper will help keep the water clean and clear for your backyard feathered friends. Last year I managed to track down several copper bird baths on Kijiji and grabbed them immediately. Copper in the garden is just too perfect not to buy it when you can.
The copper basin’s 1.5-inch depth is perfect for small birds to bathe safely and comfortably, while the rim offers perching spots for larger birds. The tall stand, with its bark-inspired tree branch design, forms a solid foundation to give the bird bath stability in the landscape, while the copper and steel construction offers durability.
This Chalet-style bird house (Main picture for this post) with copper roof is the perfect complement to the copper bird bath pictured above. The bird house, with its 1.24-inch entry, is designed for smaller backyard birds such as nuthatches, titmice and wrens. Featuring a verdigras, pure copper shingled roof and entry-guard, the perchless entry helps protect inhabitants from predators. A 3-inch hole on the back with sliding copper door simplifies spring clean-up, drainage holes and air vents keep the interior cool and dry.
The combination of beauty and elegance combined with solid construction and high quality material gives this birdhouse a timeless sophistication that will age beautifully in your woodland garden.
Wind & Weather and Plow & Hearth offer a variety of choices
Another favourite on-line garden and outdoor store is Wind & Weather and its sister store Plow and Hearth.
If you are looking for something really special for the garden, this Tree of Life Arbour, for example, will fit in perfectly in any woodland garden. The arbour’s solid construction and attention to detail makes it both an elegant addition to the garden, and sturdy enough to handle large, vigorous vines and climbing roses.
The Tree of Life arbor is an impressive, well made arbor that fits peerfectly into a woodland garden.
If birds are more your thing, there is another similar model that features hummingbirds rather than the tree motif.
Both arbours are almost too beautiful to run vines and roses over. As stand-alone features at key openings in the garden, the arbours really can create a warm welcome for visitors or focus points in the garden.
Wind and Weather’s statuary is another feature of the site. There are too many to list here but check out the site if you are looking for well-priced statuary to add to your garden.
One of the features my wife and I enjoy most in our garden is a life-sized rusty buck that we tuck in among the ostrich ferns when they rise up in the spring.
Our male deer brings a big smile to my face every time I come into the yard and catch a glimpse of the buck peering out over the ferns,.
Our favourite piece of garden art, however, doesn’t compare to this deer family collection. (see image below)
These fiberglass, near life-size deer statuary in a bronze finish depicts an entire family, including adult male and female deer and fawns. The good thing is that these remarkably detailed sculptures won’t treat your garden like their personal buffet.
All the statues are filled with striking detail, making them remarkably lifelike. From the defined musculature and realistic fur texture to their expressive faces, all the details work together to create truly impressive art for your outdoor spaces.
These bronze-like deer statuary are the perfect addition to any woodland garden.
I’ve always admired Maine ceramic artist Tyson M. Weiss’s outstanding Fish in the Garden sculptures and dreamed of having a school of his fish swimming up through our garden ferns or large swaths of ornamental grass. Plow and Hearth has its own, less expensive version of Fish in the Garden. Consider adding a little whimsy with these trio swimming up through your favourite ornamental grasses. They are so well priced that a small school of them are well within most gardener’s price range.
Indoor plants in the spotlight
The incredible growth in the past year of indoor plants gives me great pleasure. I do believe that part of the emergence of indoor plants is the result of more than a year of having to stay indoors for the most part during this pandemic.
Although we are slowly emerging from the stay-at-home lifestyle, I truly believe that the fascination with indoor plants will continue to grow. I see it with my own daughter who lives in a condo in downtown Toronto and has discovered the joy of indoor plants.
I recently gifted her one of my seed-grown, pink and green polka dot plants from our Click and Grow system (my earlier article on Click and Grow) that she just loves.
The Click and Grow system (link to company website) is in heavy use these days at our home growing plants for our front window boxes. It’s a great system that has performed admirably over the past several years.
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