Expensive gifts for gardeners

12/10/2019

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For the passionate gardener who has everything, there’s always something unique and interesting to find if you look in the right places. No, really - the world is filled with superb garden gadgets that can transform both backyards and outdoor planting routines. If your favourite gardener already has the gloves, the apron and the belt, we’ve got some fresh ideas for the next gifting season.

We’re taking a look at some fancier garden gadgets today. When selected with care, expensive gifts for gardeners can last a long time and easily recoup their price tag by being highly practical and even transformative in some cases. For instance, fire pits can be expensive gadgets, but they are worthwhile because they make a garden comfortable for entertaining all year round.

Whatever type of product you’re looking for, we hope our gift guide can help you find it. And here’s to the gardeners in our lives, to their endless patience and attention to detail because, let’s be honest, it can teach us a lot about life. These are our top picks of the best expensive gifts for gardeners.

Greenhouse

We wouldn’t call an entire greenhouse a cheap gift but they’re not quite as expensive you might think. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, so you’re guaranteed to find a product to suit your budget. The larger greenhouses are perfect for intensive, long term growing. If you’ve got a friend or relative who’d love to be planting and pruning all year – even in winter – it’s the ideal gift.

Greenhouses create a stable environment with a controlled temperature and humidity which can be easily adjusted to suit different plant species. Due to their enclosed nature, greenhouses maintain constant ‘spring’ conditions and enable gardeners to grow vegetables, herbs and plants that would normally only be viable for part of the year. Don’t forget, growing in a greenhouse is also the best way to keep birds and other critters from chomping on your beloved plants.

Greenhouse

Helsinki Hot Tub

This next gift really is a luxury product. Helsinki hot tubs make very expensive gifts for gardeners, but they are unlike anything else on the market. They’re modelled on the Nordic style of hot tub with an integrated massage system for total relaxation. The advanced pump technology means water can be heated and filtered at the same time. Plus, with its super insulated protective cover, there’s no chance of sharp stones puncturing the bottom.

As far as garden gadgets go, this is as fancy as it gets. We recommend shopping for an inflatable version of the Helsinki hot tub. The structure is extremely tough, but it can be completely inflated and let down in less than ten minutes. This makes the hot tub highly portable. Want to use it at a pal’s garden party? Let it down, pack it up and put it in the car.

Helsinki hot tub

Rollable Drinks Cooler

Is any garden party complete without a mobile bar? Grab one for yourself or a friend by investing in a rollable drinks cooler. These nifty serving gadgets are much like a supersized wine cooler on long wheeled legs. Most of these are big on the inside (75 litres, in some cases), so there’s plenty of room for all your beers, wines, spritzers, mixers and more

If you’re thinking about buying one of these coolers, we recommend a version with an integrated bottle opener and a ‘waste’ compartment. Some have fully detachable cooler sections; you can lift the entire cooling box off the trolley and use it in a more traditional manner. This might be useful if you can only wheel a rollable cooler in some parts of the garden and need to carry it over grassy areas.

Rolling drinks cooler

Garden Multi-Tool

The classic garden multi-tool is a very practical gadget that’s worth every penny if you know how to use it. The term ‘multi-tool’ refers to the fact these devices come with multiple detachable heads that can be used on a single handheld frame. They look pretty similar to edge and hedge trimmers with the long body and replaceable end. Finished with pruning garden trees and want to mow the lawn? Just swap the detachable heads around.

There are different types of garden multi-tool on the market. However, most come with (at a minimum) separate removable heads for pruning, trimming, sawing, cutting and chopping. These gadgets can be tricky to master at first, but the idea is users save time and space by buying one device instead of five. For gardeners who are tight on space, it’s an easy way to have a whole arsenal in one box.

Garden multitool

Thermal Imaging Scope

For true wildlife lovers, thermal imaging scopes are an opportunity to observe nature in a completely new way. Yes, they’re pricey but they can last a long time if cared for correctly. These gadgets are a great way to monitor animal activity both in the backyard and out in the wild on camping or hunting trips. Ultimately, how much you end up spending on a scope depends entirely on what you’d like to do with it.

There are more affordable thermal scopes which are handy for checking out faults in the garden or home after dark. There are also much more sophisticated scopes that are specifically designed to capture detailed movement and heat signatures. If you’ve got cash to splash, these professional scopes are excellent – expect exceptional accuracy and real time integration of surface temperature and thermals.

Thermal imaging camera

Motorised Wheelbarrow

The future called: they’ve got electronic wheelbarrows. It might sound a little strange but motorised wheelbarrows have soared in popularity with domestic gardeners. They’re perfect for older gardeners who have lost mobility. They are ideal for homeowners with very large gardens who need help relocating debris and other materials. In fact, if you’ve ever found yourself despairing over a wonky wheelbarrow on uneven terrain, it’s for you too.

Motorised wheelbarrows are surprisingly simple. They look much like traditional wheelbarrows, but they tend to be larger and have a powerful battery on their bottom. On average, they can be used for around two straight hours before they need a recharge. If you’re happy to spend more, you can even get a ride on version that’s more like a miniature truck than a wheelbarrow.

Motorised Wheelbarrow

Robot Lawn Mowers

If you’re looking for expensive gifts for gardeners because you want to impress, we recommend a robot lawn mower. It sounds cool because it is. Robot lawn mowers do everything you’d expect and much more. Like a Roomba, when programmed, they map a given area (in this case, all your grass). They log the position of obstacles, set perimeter reminders and ‘wake up’ when scheduled or manually turned on. The more sophisticated the mower, the better its mapping system and the more evenly it’ll cut the grass (with few or no missed sections).

Our favourite thing about robot lawn mowers is they can be programmed to turn on only in suitable weather conditions. So, when a hot and dry day comes along, the mower doesn’t need a reminder to get to work. It searches for forecast information, sees the weather is appropriate, wakes itself up and has your whole lawn neat and tidy before you know it.

Yard force

Garden Tiller

Not everybody needs a heavy duty motorised garden tiller. It’s quite a specialised tool even if the process of tilling is pretty commonplace. If you have a very large outdoor space, one of these devices might come in handy for sowing season. Electric tillers have rotating blades which spin inside the soil to introduce oxygen, sunlight and space for nutrients to penetrate.

The traditional method of soil tilling is to use a hand tool like a trowel or small fork. This obviously takes much longer, and it can be a strain on the joints for older gardeners. With an electric tiller, all you’ve got to do is push the front blades into the earth. Some of these tillers are motorised but still handheld. Others have wheels to make the process even easier. Look out for practical features like counterweights which help the user balance the device while plunging it in and back out of the ground.

Garden tiller

Garden Shredder

Your favourite gardener has all the fanciest maintenance tools. They’ve already got a multi-tool, a smart mower, an electric tiller and more. But do they have a shredder especially for their garden? Garden shredders have become rather sophisticated in recent years. These days, the gadgets are capable of decimating grass, leaves, roots and tree branches in a container that’s compact enough to store in the smallest of corners.

The biggest benefit of investing in a garden shredder is the convenience of being able to crunch piles of debris into tiny volumes of waste. This organic waste can then be used in compost piles or as fertiliser for lawns and flowerbeds. If you’ve got any children or grandchildren, we strongly recommend you look carefully at safety features such as cutting shields and interlocked funnels. Also, if you plan to use your shredder regularly, look for a product with ‘peep holes’ in the sides so you can keep track of the fill level.

Garden shredder

Gardeners Log Cabin

Now we come to the biggest and most luxurious product on our list of expensive gifts for gardeners. This is an extremely pricey item but, if we’re being honest, it’s the type of treat most of us dream of for our gardens. The gardeners log cabin is a prefabricated wooden structure which, when erected, creates a freestanding shed or summerhouse. While these cabins can be very expensive, they’re actually a whole lot cheaper than an alternative like building an extension on the house.

In most cases, these cabin structures require extensive construction work. However, some of the simpler designs use a tongue and groove design which makes them easier to construct, particularly if you lack DIY experience. When built, they prove their worth because they can be used as an extra room of the house. What would you do with an additional study, greenhouse, games room, bedroom or reading space?

Gardeners cabin

Wooden Garden Pergola

Pergolas are an exciting addition to the garden because they create the illusion of distinct, delineated space. Putting up a wooden garden pergola is like creating an outdoor ‘room.’ It generates shade, provides protection from strong winds and serves as a stylish area for cooking and entertaining. Plus, it’s easy to hang canvases over the trusses and use the pergola more like a gazebo.

You can also use a wooden pergola to connect different sections of an outdoor space. They look particularly striking when placed over a walkway or used to direct traffic in place of a walkway. If you’re patient and don’t mind hard work, there’s nothing quite like a pergola that’s artfully draped in beautiful hanging vines, creepers and flowers.

timber Pergola

Garden Oven

Gardeners who love to entertain might consider investing in a garden oven which enables them to take the culinary party outdoors. For the most part, these sturdy ‘all-weather’ ovens are used to cook pizzas in a traditional style. However, most are capable of stone baking, grilling, broiling and barbequing anything from meat and veggies to fresh fish and even homemade bread. These gadgets are designed to be used and stored outdoors so, even though some gadgets come with wheels, you can leave your oven outside with just its weatherproof cover for protection.

We recommend you position an outdoor oven on the flattest surface available. For instance, the best location in most gardens is usually on a level deck or patio. It’s up to you to choose between a gas or more natural coal fired oven. Coal powered devices are more ‘authentic’ when it comes to cooking traditional style pizzas. Yet, they can also take more time to master and maintain. It’s worth thinking about this before you make your choice.

Garden oven

Ride On Lawnmower

If you’ve ever used a full sized ride on mower, you’ll know it can generate a distinctly ‘kingly’ feeling in some. There’s nothing to compare with riding roughshod, at speed, over acres of green grass. What we’re trying to say is it feels uniquely commanding. Ride on lawnmowers are the pinnacle of mowing technologies. If you can afford one and you’ve got a lot of grass to maintain, there’s no quicker or easier way to do it.

Ride on mowers come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. The best come with powerful single cylinder engines, variable transmissions and tough, rugged tyres. Don’t worry about collecting the grass; there’s a removable container behind the seat. Just jump off, unclip the basket and discard your clippings. If you don’t have a really big garden, a ride on lawnmower is probably overkill but we all like to dream.

Ride on lawn mower

We hope you liked our list of the best expensive gifts for gardeners. When you take pride in your outdoor space and work hard to maintain it, you deserve to enjoy it. If you did not find what you are looking for why not check out our article on 100 gifts for gardeners here. Alternatively why not check out this useful page on luxury garden gifts here. Whether you’re looking for a gift for a loved one or a treat for yourself, these are some of the most exciting products and garden gadgets on the market.

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