It's true: secateurs, watering cans and general horticultural hardware are not exactly the most glamorous of gifts, but it's what many of us gardeners want, we really do.
However, if you balk at the thought of a pneumatic-tyred wheelbarrow or a 120-litre compost bin hulking under the Christmas tree, there are other, less utilitarian items that any gardener would welcome.
I asked three keen gardeners to nominate their own wheelbarrows-full of last-minute Christmas gift suggestions, and here is what they dug up.
Paul Cox co-owns the Hardy Plant Nursery in Ballybrack, a mail-order outlet for herbaceous and cottage garden plants. The nursery is well-known to discerning gardeners and professional landscapers as a source of well-grown and unusual perennials. Paul is one of those gifted gardeners who combine enviable practical skills, Herculean strength and great plantsmanship.
Felco secateurs (available in good garden shops, from £20.50 to £47.55). If you're a serious gardener, it has to be a Felco. The top-of-the-range model comes with a rotating handle, making awkward cuts simple, and facilitating those with weaker hands. Paul's wife, Susan, gave him a Felco for their first Christmas 10 years ago, and they've been happy ever since.
Gardening gloves (widely available, from £1.99). A busy gardener runs through pairs and pairs a year, and an extra set is always welcome. And no, it's not the horticultural equivalent of giving socks to your dad.
Bulldog brand spring-tine rake (available in good garden shops, £18.95). What Felco is to secateurs, the Bulldog is to other tools: well-made and dependable - and the rake has a bright yellow handle, making it difficult to lose.
Tools for kids: scaled down True Temper hoes, spades and rakes (Mackey's, £7.99). Get them young and introduce them to the joys of playing in the mud. "I'd like to get these for Sophie," says Paul, looking forward to multigenerational gardening with his his seven-year-old.
Bird table (garden shops and hardware outlets, from about £30). Nothing brightens up the winter garden like our feathered friends flitting about. In return for leftovers and kitchen scraps (but nothing salty please), they will stage a constant musical comedy.
Wild bird care kit (widely available: £12.95). Contains a hanging feeder with cover, a nesting box and various foods: in short, everything needed to attract the smaller flying acrobats, such as sparrows, finches and tits.
Copper plant labels (Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow and Mackey's £2.25 - £4.65 depending on size and number). With a ball-point pen, you
engrave the hard-to-remember names of plants on these labels. In time the shiny copper will weather to a sophisticated verdigris.
The RHS A - Z Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants, Dorling Kindersley (£55 in the UK). 1,079 pages, packed with information. All earnest gardeners aspire to owning this book sooner or later - if they can lift it. The Well-Tempered Garden by Christopher Lloyd, Penguin (£18 in UK). The octogenarian gardener wrote this 27 years ago, but it is still as fresh and opinionated - and absolutely invaluable - as the day it was first published.
Geoff Hamilton's Paradise Gar- dens, BBC Books (£18.99 in UK). "I always liked Geoff Hamilton," says Paul, "he was a great gardener." In this, Hamilton's last book before his death last year, the well-loved gardener shows how to turn the smallest garden into a little secluded haven.
Less than a fortnight ago, Lorna Dunne and her mother Isabel opened up a shop in the old Egg Depot on Wexford Street, selling cut flowers, plants and garden accessories. "My own garden is a tiny yard and everything is grown in containers," she says. And it was her search for pot stands and wall brackets that gave Lorna the idea of setting up the shop, where in time she hopes to supply all those things essential to the pockethandkerchief gardener. "At the moment it's very basic, and we're just finding our feet."
Glass bell-jar cloche (Egg Depot, £29.50 and £24.50). Keeps tender plants safe from the ravages of winter weather.
Ready-planted basket with bulbs and polyanthus (Egg Depot, from £5.50 - £35). "People are into `convenience gardening' now, especially if they have a tiny apartment or flat," claims Lorna. "With something like this, you can give someone a little instant garden."
Galvanised "plant skate" (Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, £8.50). A large tray on wheels for whooshing heavy pots around the patio. "I'd love someone to give me one of these for my back yard," says Lorna.
Rubbery clogs for gardeners in yellow, red, brown, blue, green, with cork insole (The Seaside Nursery, Claddaghduff, (five miles from Clifden) Co Galway, tel: 095 44687. £18.95 and £20.95). "Our family always wears short wellies, but these are much more fun," says Lorna.
Head-torch (Great Outdoors, £9.95 - £39.90). Leaves both hands free for night-time garden activities: picking last-minute herbs for dinner, or for hunting pests. Lorna would like one "for my mother who has terrible trouble with slugs in her garden".
More tools for kids (Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, from £1.99 - £6.45). Wooden-handled garden tools - trowel, hand-fork, spade and rake - with bright red or green metal heads, for very young children. "I'd like to get them for Lucy," says Lorna enthusiastically, keen to induct her daughter into the garden - at 10 months.
Subscription to Gardens Illustrated (Six issues cost £29.70 in UK, Gardens Illustrated Subscriptions (SW6096), Bristol BS32 0BR, England. Telephone: 0044 1454 202515). The ultimate garden magazine: a feast of luscious photography and compelling reading.
John Brookes' Garden Design Book, Dorling Kindersley (£25 in UK). Definitive guide by the renowned British designer. Deals accessibly with all aspects of the tricky subject of garden design.
Reader's Digest New Gardening Year (£19.95 in UK). This excellent book catalogues what to do in the garden month-by-month, and contains splendid features on all the basics of gardening.
Karl Barnes is a garden designer specialising mainly in town gardens. Next spring he opens a new garden shop in Dun Laoghaire called Formality, which - as the name suggests - will lean in a strongly formal direction. Topiary, garden furniture and all kinds of garden paraphernalia will be for sale, with the dominant mood being one of snappy modernity.
Haw's watering can (in good garden centres, from £4.70 to £52.50). The Rolls Royce of watering cans. Karl especially likes the no-nonsense galvanised version.
Galvanised window box (Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, £12.95, £11.95, £9.95). Smart plant containers with rolled tops, in three different sizes, for the no-frills, contemporary garden.
Petite galvanised pots with saucers (Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, £9.95). "I have to admit I like galvanised things, they go well with the more modern town-house or apartment setting," says Karl.
The "Erbale" (Minima, £79) "This is a fun, modern wall planter in see-through PVC that looks a bit like a hanging shoe bag," explains Karl. The selfwatering Italian plant-holder has four planting pockets, and four water reservoirs (that look remarkably like hospital dripbags).
Terracotta pots by Paddy Mur- phy (Hillview Potteries, Carley's Bridge, Co Wexford, tel: 054 35443, from £1.50 - £20). "These are dead-plain, old-fashioned pots that don't compete with the plants. And they're Irish clay, which is a beautiful, rich colour."
Clipped box ball (Mackey's, £99 and other good garden centres). Topiary is expensive, but one or two pieces give great structure to the garden all year round.
Walter Pfeiffer note-cards de- picting Irish gardens (The Dalkey Design Company and Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, about £1.30 each). Blank cards, depicting atmospheric photographs of Irish gardens. "These make a good lastminute, token present," says Karl. Fasten a few together with some ribbon or raffia.
Subscription to The Irish Garden magazine (10 issues cost £19, P.O. Box 69, Bray, Co Wicklow. Freephone: 1800 390093). Written by Irish gardeners, for Irish gardeners. "It has done an awful lot to raise the profile of gardening in this country," says Karl.
Readers Digest New Encyclopaedia Of Garden Plants And Flowers (£29.95 in UK). If you can't afford the monumental RHS encyclopaedia, this alternative is "reasonably priced, it's a good all-rounder, and it won't bamboozle the beginner with too much information."
And here is my own addendum of last-minute suggestions which includes a number of posh (and expensive) plants that gardeners would rarely dream of splashing out on for themselves.
Mature lemon tree (Mackey's, £225), or a more modest `Citrofortunella' with miniature tangerine-type fruits (Murphy and Wood, £25). The much soughtafter, winter-scented shrub, Daphne bholua `Jacqueline Postil' (Murphy and Wood, £15.
Camellias, the very welcome alternative to poinsettias (most garden centres, from £7.50 - £40).
Sexy, seductive orchids (good garden centres, £15 - £60).
A new clematis, `Early Sensa- tion', which is set to become the fashion plant over the next few years, with elegant, evergreen, waxy, ferny foliage and white blossoms (Murphy and Wood, £15.50).
Foot-square, ready-planted al- pine gardens: instant vegetation for apartment balconies, or tiny yards (Murphy and Wood, £25.00), and the indoor equivalent with cacti and succulents (The Seaside Nursery, Claddaghduff, £2 - £30).
And finally, a bit of frippery for dog-loving gardeners: a dachshund-shaped, cast-iron bootscraper-cum-doorstop (Murphy and Wood, £7.50)