We’ve assembled a wonderful array of Mother’s Day gifts for any and every Mom, regardless of her style and personality. We can ship the gift of your choice straight to Mom’s house. We’ll even gift wrap it and include a personalized message on your behalf for a small charge of only $4.

Gifts for the Gardener Mom:

We think that it’s no coincidence that Mother’s Day is in May each year. Come May, the April showers have ceased and given way to sunnier skies, making it a great time to gift mom with some fun new gardening supplies. Place all of these items together in a large flower pot or galvanized metal bucket for a beautiful Mother’s Day gardening gift.

Matchstick Gardens $2.50

Soil Scoop $18

Write + Erase Plant Tags $16

• Botanical Interests Seeds make a simple and fun gift, and are small enough that you can tuck them right inside a greeting card.
• Matchstick Gardens are cute and trendy, too! In fact, they are featured in this month’s edition of Better Homes and Gardens.
• Garden Plant Tags are perfect for the garden. Not only are they stylish but reusable. Plus, they come in two different pretty design schemes: botanical and herb.
• Bamboo Garden Gloves are not just your ordinary gloves. Mom will feel totally pampered in these durable and eco-friendly gardening gloves.
• Allsop Container Pot Pads are a practical gift for anyone who enjoys container gardening.
• Soil Scoops come in 5 different colors, and you are sure to find Mom’s favorite shade.

The Foodie Mom:

Every foodie is really a garden lover at heart. Why? Because the best foods are ones that are locally grown and produced. To encourage your mom’s love of all things delicious and scrumptious, we have a selection of gifts for the foodie. Group these items together in a large mixing bowl or colander for a great foodie gift.

Gather Book $22.95

Roost Farmers Market Baskets from $13

Eat & Spoon Tea Towel Set $42

• Gather, a seasonal cookbook by Georgeann Brennan, is all about bringing the entire family together to enjoy a meal, whether it’s super extravagant or totally simple. The family dinner is a dwindling art, and one that we think should be preserved.
• Tea Towels are a great for drying fruits and veggies. Help Mom update her kitchen with an eco-friendly alternative to paper towels.
• The Roost Farmers Market Baskets are a chic update on a grocery store staple. Made of sturdy white bone china, they’re so pretty that Mom can keep them right out on the kitchen counter.
• Don’t you think it’s time for Mom to update that old plastic cutting board that has seen better days? The Roost Cutting Board and Serving Set, with its tough and rustic design, can go right from prep to serving thanks to its handsome appearance.
• The Roost Mortar & Pestle is sure to become Mom’s favorite new kitchen tool. If she’s not sure how to use it, she can get some easy tips with our blog Top 5 Uses For Your Roost Mortar and Pestle.
• Roost Apple and Pear Pinch Bowls are great not only for salt, pepper and other herbs and spices, but could also be used for rings, stamps, or crafting supplies such as seed beads.

The Bird Loving Mom:

Singing songbirds herald the arrival of spring, and are certainly one of the loveliest and most welcome signs of the season. Whether Mom has a sprawling backyard or a teeny apartment balcony, she can attract these friendly visitors to her space and enjoy their company. Arrange these gifts in a pretty basket for the perfect bird lover’s Mother’s Day gift.

Glass Bird Tealights $22

Bodega Birdhouses from $79

Roost Hummingbird Feeders from $20

• The Roost Glass Bird Tealights are perfect decorations for any season. They look lovely as a stand-alone centerpiece, or perched among seasonal flowers, foliage, and berries.
• Roost Bird Candles are finely crafted candles that come in a set of four in green, ivory, or gray to match any of mom’s decor styles.
• The Birds of a Feather Mobile makes such an interesting and unique gift. Wouldn’t it look pretty positioned near an open window, so that the wooden birds could gently flutter in the breeze?
• Modern Glass Hummingbird Feeders are a stylish way for Mom to lure hummingbirds to her outdoor spaces, which are undoubtedly one of the most beautiful garden visitors.
• Roost Bodega Bird Houses have such a hip design. With three different designs to choose from, you can pick the one that Mom would like best – or place a grouping in one of her trees for a happenin’ bird ‘hood.
• Owl Salt & Pepper Shakers transform a mundane kitchen object into a hand-carved work of art.

Still haven’t found the ideal gift for Mom? Take a look at our Mother’s Day blog from last year, Garden Starter Kits Make Great Mother’s Day Gifts, for some additional ideas. Or, peruse our Gifts for Her section to find plantable paper, lusciously scented bath products, and other fun items.

Every year when we plan our steamy-season summer vacation, we make a list of things that must be cared for in our absence. Take the dog to the kennel, contact the post office to stop our mail delivery, set a timer so the living room lights automatically go on and off, and ask the neighbor next door to water our plants. Yet every year when we return, our foxglove doesn’t look so foxy, our potted geraniums hang their red heads sadly, and our sweet basil looks more dried out and crusty than sweet. Drat!

Well, we recently discovered an easy way to insure that our plants are watered while we’re on vacation. No offense to our neighborhood kids, but we think that the Plant Nanny is a more sure-fire way to make sure our gardens are reliably watered in our absence!

Enjoy Peace of Mind with Plant Nanny Singles

All you need in order to use the Plant Nanny is a used plastic soda or water bottle. (So this is a cool way to recycle plastic, too.) The Plant Nanny consists of a special ceramic stake and a drip-free bottle adapter. All you have to do is place the ceramic stake in the soil, and overturn the filled plastic bottle, with the adapter attached, into the ceramic stake. As your soil dries out and becomes filled with air, the bottle releases just the right amount of water. Since the stake is in the soil, this is a super efficient way to water, wherein the water is delivered directly to the roots, allowing your plants to develop healthy, hardy roots.

Plant Nannies come in two different sizes to fit pretty much any need. Plant Nanny Singles are great for if you’re just going on an extended weekend trip, or if your container garden consists of smaller pots. The single size uses a plastic bottle up to one liter in size. For a longer vacation, or if you have a window box or larger pots, you should try the Plant Nanny Add-A-Bottles. These adapters can accommodate up to a 2 liter sized plastic bottle, so even if you’re gone for a week, your windowsill herb garden will still stay healthy and hydrated.

If you love the idea of recycling an old plastic bottle rather than letting it sit in a landfill, then you will love this second product that we just recently added to our gardens as well. We’ve recently begun using Petal Drops in our gardens, and we think they’re just adorable!

Price: $3.99
Buy Plant Nanny Singles Now!

Repurpose Rainwater in Style with Petal Drops

Petal Drops are just as simplistic and easy to use as the Plant Nanny. They are not only a useful way to recycle plastic water and soda bottles, but also a handy way to re-purpose rain water. All you need to do is attach Petal Drops, which are cute little flower-shaped funnels, to the tops of emptty plastic bottles, then place them outdoors. The Petal Drops utilize the same concept as a rain barrel, but are much more space efficient. You can use Petal Drops even if you just have a small cement porch or iron balcony.

Recently, after a glorious, heavy July thunderstorm, we found that all five of the Petal Drops bottles we had placed throughout our backyard were filled with water. So what did we do? We took the bottles and overturned them into our Plant Nannies. We are thrilled- watering our plants has definitely never been so easy, or so earth friendly!

Price: $6.00
Buy Petal Drops Rainwater Catchers Now!

For first time gardeners, getting started can be quite intimidating. Many people would love to experience America’s #1 most popular outdoor hobby, but simply don’t know where to begin. A trip to the local Big Box gardening store is less than helpful. There are so many mass-produced products from which to choose, how could one possibly sort through them all?

Well, we at aHa! Modern Living have a terrific solution for the aspiring or novice gardener. We have assembled a wonderful little collection of Garden Starter Kits to take the guesswork out of beginning a home garden. With three different kits from which to choose, we’ve designed one to fit any green thumb’s needs.

Don’t forget that Mother’s Day will be here before you know it! Mom is sure to love a gift that will allow her to spend time outside in the lovely, warm May weather. Check out all of the Garden Starter Kits for the one that will best suit Mom:

The Urban Seed Starting Kit – $46.43

If you want to take the guesswork out of gardening for your mom, then the Urban Seed Starting Kit is the perfect Mother’s Day gift. We’ve designed it to accommodate the first-time gardener who’s just starting to get her handy dirty, but also for the more experienced gardener who just loves convenience and efficiency.

Each Urban Seed Starting Kit includes:

• One 8 quart bag of Black Gold Seedling Mix- a mix of Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss, perlite and Dolomite lime, and yucca extract, which creates the perfect medium for starting seeds.
• One 12 pack of 3-inch Cow Pots- made of biodegradable, re-purposed cow manure, these pots are perfect for starting seeds because you can stick them right in the ground.
• Three bags of Annie Haven’s Cow Manure Tea- each bag makes 5 gallons of all natural soil conditioning tea.
• One pair of Eco Bamboo Garden Gloves- super soft and stretchy gloves made of bamboo.
• One 16-ounce Garden Spray Bottle- serves a wide variety of uses, from mixing up fertilizer concentrates, to blasting off insects, to watering seedlings.
• One Grow Your Own Food Made Easy Handbook- packed with tips and information on how to grow more veggies in less space.

The Stylish Girl Gift Set – $54.50

The Stylish Girl Gift Set is perfect for gardening within a small space, such as an apartment or retirement home. All of the items are compact, easy to store, and designed to bring a little bit of colorful life into a city dwelling.

The Stylish Girl Gift Set includes:

• One Chrysanthemum Eggling- just crack open the white ceramic shell and water the peat and seed mixture to easily grow your own little chrysanthemum garden.
• One Daub & Bauble Hand Wash & Lotion Set- both the hand wash and lotion are luxuriously formulated with moisturizing ingredients such as Aloe Vera and Vitamin E. Read more about why to use Daub and Bauble’s natural ingredients.
• One Elephant Watering Can- Adorable! Need we say more?
• One Matchstick Wildflower Garden- all you need to do is tear off a little matchstick, which is already packed with seeds, and pop it in a pot. Storing and planting seeds couldn’t be simpler.

Modern Container Garden Kit – $65.99

If mom loves to garden, but doesn’t have a backyard in which to do it, no problem! The Modern Container Garden Kit has everything she needs to turn a small space, such as a window ledge, front step, or back patio into a lovely container garden:

The Modern Container Garden Kit includes:

• One 8 quart bag of Black Gold’s Organic Potting Soil- the ideal mix of Canadian sphagnum peat moss, perlite, worm castings, which is perfect for indoor and outdoor potted plants.
• One Aqua Genie Watering Can- this this sleek watering can’s mini size helps prevent over watering and makes it easy to store.
• One Write + Erase Plant Stakes (Herb or Botanical)- these pretty tags can be used again and again. All you have to do is wipe off the name and re-write!
• One All-Purpose Fertilizer Concentrate- contains all the nutrients needed to grow healthy vegetables, herbs, flowers, trees, and container gardens.
• One Roost Wood Dibber Hand Tool- No, it’s not a stake for vampire hunting. A wood dibber allows you to plant bulbs and seeds at the correct depth. It makes planting a snap.
• One 4-pack Pot Pads (green, brown, blue or red)- an essential little addition for any successful container garden. Pot pads lift the pot in order to provide water drainage and air circulation, and also prevent ugly pot stains on your patio or deck.
• One set of Herb & Floral Clippers- these non-rust clippers make trimming and pruning a breeze.
  

Discover cool and affordable presents for everyone on your list:

• What to buy for your super-trendy jet setting friend whose house is adorned with treasures from her travels? She’ll love our Stocking Stuffers for Decorators.
• What about your boss who throws the most fabulous holiday bash for the entire office every year? She’ll be delighted with a gift that is designed for the Entertainer.
• How about your neighbor who spends 4 hours outside in her garden every morning? She is sure to adore a gift from our Garden Lover’s selection.
• Oh, and don’t forget about your college roomate who went barefoot for 3 months, and spent every summer hiking the Blue Ridge Parkway. We have great gifts for the Nature Lover, too.

We’ve all had to pinch pennies a little bit over the past year, so we certainly understand if you don’t want to empty your pockets for a few great Christmas gifts. This is why we have an awesome selection of presents for under 10 bucks.

For your friend who, like many, is going to be traveling this holiday season, take a peek at the Daub and Bauble Travel Lotions. They are totally portable and packable, and meet the current airline regulations for carry-ons. They even still come in the same gorgeous bottle designs and delicious scents as the full-sized original.

Now for your boss’ fabulous holiday party. We’ll bet she has never received a gift quite like the Frog Salt and Pepper Shakers. Aren’t they a fun conversation piece? As an added bonus, they’re made from water buffalo horn. So they’re not only beautiful, but they’re eco-friendly too. We’re sure you’ll be bringing the most creative gift of the night with these. Right now they’re on sale for just $16.80, so you can get your hands on this fun and funky present for less than 20 bucks!

Your neighbor the gardener could definitely use some new tools for her favorite hobby. Check out the Gardener’s Multi-Tool. This handy like gadget has it all! And at under 15 bucks, it’s a gift purchase that you can feel good about making as well.

Okay, now we’ve made it to the last person on your list: your earth loving friend. She will totally dig some gorgeous nature-inspired jewelry, like these absolutely beautiful Twig Earrings. They’re on sale for under $30, which is a steal considering that they’re made from fine sterling silver. Not only that, but they’ll totally reflect your friend’s organic style, and match just about any outfit that she wears.

Jewelry not her thing? No problem- we have a whole section of eco-friendly products to choose from. You are sure to find something that makes an easy, affordable, and fun Christmas gift!

Matchstick Gardens $2.50 It’s your own portable garden that fits in your pocket.  Available in herb and botanical varieties. Our Matchstick Gardens also made Marie Iannotti’s, garden writer for About.com, Top 10 Gifts for Gardeners list.

Floral Clippers $5.00 Regular hand pruners can make trimming those small, delicate flowers quite challenging.  Your garden lover won’t have to worry about bending the stems those precious flowers with these compact, easily maneuverable flower clips. Great for snipping fresh herbs for savory recipes.

Pot Pads $6.00 Pot Pads will help your container gardener move heavy containers (up to 3,000 pounds) over uneven surfaces, keep deck or patios surfaces from staining, and provide much needed air flow to the plant’s roots. Available in red and green. Read Kerry Michael’s review of our Pot Pads on her About.com Container Gardening blog.

Garden Weeder Gloves $7.50 The unique foam coating will protect your gardener’s fingertips from the elements, while the extended cuffs will guard their wrists from scratchy, itchy weeds. Available in blue, pink, purple

Soil Scoop $18.00 NOW $14.40 The Soil Scoop is the jack-of-all-trades.  This tool can perform a variety of gardening tasks: digging, weeding, chopping, cutting, potting or planting. Available in blue, purple, yellow, green, red. Watch this tool in action on Fern Richardson’s blog, Life on the Balcony. “I LOVE my Soil Scoop.” Kerry Michaels, garden writer for About.com

Write + Erase Plant Tags $16.00 Help the garden lover in your life keep track of their seedlings with these stylish, modern plant tags. Made from U/V resistant soft rubber, these tags will stay legible and are re-usable season after season. Available in herb and botanical designs.

Ken Ho Weeder $16.50 This tool is great for scraping away those annoying shallow weeds in your gardener’s flower or veggie beds.  The Ken Ho Weeder will be hard to lose in the garden with its bold red handle.

Still not what you’re looking for? Check out more garden related gifts in our for Modern Garden category.

photo by Happy Mundane

Every year, the Christmas season starts a little earlier. This year, stores were filled with plastic evergreen trees and stacked boxes of greeting cards even before the Halloween costume aisle was cleared out.

The holidaze begins months in advance. Yet every year, regardless of how early you start your Christmas shopping, there is someone who remains on your list. This is the someone for whom you need to find a gift that is unusual; not just another trinket from a big-box store. aHa! Modern Living is here for the rescue with a selection of gifts for that tricky person on your list who already seems to have it all.

Gifts for the Un-green Thumb

We all have that friend who claims to kill every plant she lays hands on. Here is the perfect solution for the aspiring gardener or apprentice who is still learning the trade. The Matchstick Garden totally makes planting as easy as pie. All you have to do is tear off a little matchstick, which is already brimming with seeds, stick it in the ground, and give it a little sprinkle of water. That’s it! They come in both wildflower and herb varieties, and at the price of only $2.50 per packet, you can afford to give both!

Matchstick Garden

One of the most common reasons that houseplants are killed is over watering. The pretty and sleek Aqua Genie Watering Can aims to prevent over watering. It’s made of lightweight plastic so that it’s easy to lift and won’t rust. This is a super error-proof and user-friendly watering can.

Aqua Genie Watering Can

Garden Tool Hand Set

Weeder Garden Gloves

Window Sill Herb Holder

Floral Clock Collection

Have we piqued your interest?  Then start shopping our Cyber Monday Specials.  In order to receive FREE Shipping, choose either UPS Ground or FedEx Home Delivery during the checkout process and enter the discount code CYBER20 on the Summary Page.  We offer a 30-day Money Back Guarantee on all orders and free return shipping.  So don’t fret, shop with confidence at aHa! Modern Living this holiday season.

Happy Shopping!

photos by Happy Mundane (from left: play it cool with blues or warm it up with oranges and yellows)

What would the month of October be without the beautiful and iconic pumpkin? Whether you plan to harvest your own home-grown pumpkins, or visit your local patch, here are some tips to insure successful pumpkin plucking.

When to Pick

Pumpkins need to be picked before the first hard frost of the year. Depending on the growing conditions, baby pumpkins can vary in size. Baby gray and white pumpkins are ready to pick when there has been no change in size for about a week. When ripe, the fruit stem will start to turn brown. Baby orange pumpkins are ready to pick when the skin gets a slight yellowish sheen.

Full-sized orange pumpkins will turn deep in color when they are ready to be picked. Their skin should be hard enough that it does not crack when you poke it with your fingernail. Don’t pick a pumpkin too early, because it will stop turning orange once it has been cut from the vine.

How to Pick

Pumpkin vines are quite prickly, so make sure to protect your hands with gardening gloves. We recommend the West County Work Gloves (below), which are lightly padded in order to completely shield your palms from prickers. Look, they have adjustable wrist straps, too, so you’re sure to get a good fit.

Pumpkins also have quite a thick stem, so you will need a sharp tool that can easily remove the fruit from the vine. The Hori-Hori Garden Knife (below) is perfect for this task. The blade, which has been forged from high carbon steel, can easily slice through the vine. Make sure to leave a portion of several inches of stem, however, otherwise your pumpkin will quickly rot.

Now, how to extract all that gooey goodness from the inside, so that you can make your own pumpkin desserts, or a jack-o-lantern? Try the super versatile Soil Scoop (below.) The serrated edge and pointed tip are designed for a wide variety of garden tasks, from weeding to chopping to planting. But check it out; this tool will also be totally perfect for scooping out pumpkin guts, and even scraping all the stringy pieces off of the inside. The Soil Scoop even comes in both green and purple, so they’re not just cute, but easy to spot in your yard or tool chest.

What to Do with Your Perfect Pumpkin

Try this cool idea that was recently featured on homemadesimple.com. These gorgeous black and white pumpkins were created using stencils. Make sure to wash and dry the surface of your pumpkin before painting it, and also tape the stencil securely to the surface before painting. A nice bonus is that when pumpkins are painted rather than carved or cut into, they can last for several weeks.

From left: hand trowel, asparagus knife, Felco pruners #2 and 5-gallon bucket with caddy

Guest Post by Susan Cohan of Susan Cohan Gardens

I’m picky about tools and especially of the garden variety.  Some, like a trowel inherited from grandpa have emotional resonance, some are used once found to be fairly useless and then forgotten and still others become gardening partners for a lifetime.  How do you figure out which tools are essential and worth the big bucks and which aren’t? How do you figure out how not to waste your money?

First, think about which garden tasks you perform most often.  Most garden tasks requiring tools can be divided into four basic categories:  cutting, digging, gathering and spreading.  Each of those tasks, depending on what you are actually doing has a myriad of tools designed to make the job easier, lighter, faster or more comfortable.  Tool makers would have you believe you need a garage or shed full of tools to have a great gardening experience.  Not so, but it is a personal decision.  If you’re a gadget monster—go for it.  I have relatively few tools—my essentials are below as are my reasons to spend money or not…

1. Felco hand pruners.  I prefer #2s although some can’t live without their #8s.  The number denotes the style of the pruner and helps to keep track of its replacement parts because every part of this tool is replaceable.   Sure you can be a purist and sharpen the cutting blade, or you can spend a few dollars (under $15) and replace a dull, dented and chipped blade with a very cool universal tool that comes with each set of pruners.  I have two pair, one is at least 20 years old, the other 10.  They are worth every penny of their somewhat steep pricetag.
2. A recycled 5 gallon bucket with a caddy that has tons of pockets to haul hand tools, tools, seeds, twine, etc back and forth to the garden.  Fiskars makes one specifically for gardeners for less than 15 bucks, but mine’s from the local hardware store.  Some even come with a removable seat but I turn an extra bucket upside down when I need to sit.
3. Two trowels—one narrow blade and one wide.  I don’t spend much on trowels.  The fancy ones with the wooden handles and hand forged digging blades are beautiful, but I have a tendency to use my trowel as an all purpose, dig/pry/bash kind of tool.  An inexpensive one that’s all one piece works for me and I got both of mine at a big box store years ago.  I can’t seem to break or loose them, but I’ve lost or broken every fancy trowel I’ve ever bought.
4. An asparagus knife or dandelion digging tool is my preferred weeding tool.  They are inexpensive, under $5. I loose these all the time and find them months later just where I left them.
5. When I first got my retractable rake as a gift from a non-gardener, I thought…how silly.  I was wrong.  I use this as much as my bamboo leaf rake.  The retractable is less than $20 and the bamboo rake less than $10.

think about which garden tasks you perform most often

When I added all of this up, it came to about $100.00.  Sure there are many more garden tools, but I could live with just these plus a $3.00 plastic watering can and the $5.00 spade I got from a rummage sale.  Oh, then there are the gloves…but that’s a whole discussion on its own.

source: ifodesigns.com

Here at aHa! Modern Living, we just love the fall season. We have tucked away our bathing suits and beach towels, and instead have begun to stock our shelves with extra fleece blankets and soft wool sweaters. The refreshing outdoor air is laced with crisp breezes and the scent of drying leaves. Our favorite coffee shops feature rich pumpkin spice flavored goodies and fresh apple treats. Autumn is truly a delight to all the senses.

Just as we relish the arrival of fall, many of the vegetables in your garden love it as well. Cool nights slow plant growth, so vegetables take longer to mature in the fall than in the summer.  Warm days and cool nights also add natural sugar to corn, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. Ahh, how sweet they are! And with aHa! Modern Living’s versatile gardening tools in hand, such as the awesome Gardener’s Multi-Tool (below), harvesting all your delicious fall veggies will be a snap!

Tips and tricks for harvesting our favorite fall veggies

Parsnips should be harvest in the late fall after several moderate freezes. A moderate freeze is a freeze of 24-28 degrees Fahrenheit.

Turnips can withstand several light freezes, which are freezes of 28-32 degrees Fahrenheit. They are ready to be harvested when the tops are one inch in diameter.

Carrots should be harvested before the first moderate freeze.  Parsnips, turnips, and carrots will all keep best when stored in your refrigerator. First, wash them thoroughly, then trim the tops to 1/2 inch. Place the veggies in a perforated plastic bag, (which can be found in most grocery stores.) Your fresh, home grown veggies will keep for 2-4 months this way.

According to Theresa Loe of Garden Fresh Living, carrots also hold up very well when stored in the freezer. However, you must process them correctly to get good results. Theresa says, “After washing and trimming (as described above), blanch them for 5 minutes in a pan of boiling water. Remove immediately and cool in a large bowl of ice water. Drain and package in plastic freezer bags. Remove most of the air, leaving a ½ inch head-space, and seal. (All vegetables expand slightly when they freeze) Label and store in the carrots in the freezer. They are best if used within 3-4 months.”

Sweet Potatoes should be harvested before you are hit by frost and freezing temperatures. Once harvested, they will need to be cured for one week at 80-85 degrees Fahrenheit in a well-ventilated area. (“Curing” hardens the skin and allows for longer storage.) They should then be stored at 55 degrees, with about 85% relative humidity. Denny Schrock of the University of Missouri Department of Horticulture suggests placing them in ventilated boxes covered with moistened burlap sacks, then storing them in a basement. You will need to periodically re-moisten the burlap.

All of your root vegetables should be removed from the ground with care, as you do not want to pierce the skin or puncture them when removing them. To make harvesting your fall root vegetables a snap, try the handy Garden Weeding Fork (below); we love tools that are multi-functional! All you need to do is place the tines of the fork into the ground and give a gentle wiggle to loosen up the soil around your root vegetables. You can then pull your precious goodies out of the earth without damaging them.