The Gift that Keeps on Giving: Seeds

I've got some children in my life for whom buying Christmas gifts is often a challenge. Most of them have everything they need or want. What could I give them that would be meaningful, fun and easy on my wallet? What could amuse them for more than an hour's time and not squeak, break or drive their parents mad?

Browsing in GRDN the other day, a pretty little garden store in Brooklyn, New York, I found a stack of beautifully packaged Hudson Valley Seed Library seeds. On a whim I bought many packets of spotted trout lettuce as well as borage, some dragon beans, ruby beets, arugula, New Yorker tomatoes and broccoli. Each package fits perfectly inside an envelope along with a Christmas card. They also make perfect stocking stuffers. Coincidentally, my friend Dan phoned me to say he had some seed for me. Two dried seedheads from the single, tall black hollyhock (bottom right) that I had admired on Fire Island this summer. Now I have dozens in the making.


Suddenly, it hit me. Seed! The kids were going to get seed for Christmas.



Gardening was a staple in my childhood. My gardening career began at the age of four when my mother gave me seeds to plant. They were radishes and soon I had my own garden patch with not only red radishes but sweet peas, larkspurs and indigenous South African ixias. The bug had bit: I was in love with gardening. I liked getting my hands full of wet soil. I loved poking a hole in the ground to drop a seed in, patting it closed, watering it, waiting, picking it, smelling it and finally, eating it.


There is a distinct satisfaction about gardening from seed. Professionally, I am surrounded by an instant-gratification kind of garden culture -- one that has almost caused me to forget about seeds. After all, I've witnessed it all: Eight-foot-tall pleached beech hedges shipped from Europe to be planted on New York City rooftops, mature trees craned up to terraces and perennials bought at their peak so as to escape the growth waiting period. It's no wonder the simplicity of seeds almost slipped my mind.
My mom grew everything from seed, setting quite the example. She had black plastic seed trays and sowed all her annuals (spring, summer, autumn) and perennials this way, thinning them out, transplanting them into the garden. I saw everything from start to finish and did the same in my own little bed behind the house.

In New York, I was shocked, at first, by what I call the "Instant Garden". I admit, I looked down my nose at it. Selling annuals and perennials only in bloom: how superficial! But I caught on quickly enough.

Looking at these seeds in the store, I was reminded of my own garden and got to thinking of what will be popping up in the spring. It's the middle of winter and this is what's on my mind. What is more hopeful than seed? It all fits together so nicely: children need to garden!


It's good for kids to garden. Waiting for a plant to grow is an exercise in patience. Successfully growing a plant is the result of healthy nuturing. Both are important skills for children to practice. Gardening is the best and most accessible therapy I can think of. To water a seed bed and then pick the flowers that you've grown puts the strains of every day life into perspective -- stopping to smell the roses, literally. The heart rate slows and a healthy calm sets in.

Even if it's just in a pot on a tiny terrace, like my spring arugula and mizuna, the smallest garden can evoke the most pleasant feelings. You needn't have a ton of space. So many Americans have unused garden space. New York reminds a person how luxurious the smallest backyard can be.


Having an outdoor space without a garden in it, modest or ambitious, is a waste. It is an opportunity squandered -- particularly for children. After all, it teaches them about themselves, about what they can do and about how good it feels to look after and care for something.

It offers something to look forward to. It's something worth waiting for.

This year, give them seeds.