Plants make wonderful holiday gifts

Hilary Groutage Smith
The Salt Lake Tribune

The 35 days between now and Christmas make up the season of joy, not misery and stress.

Remember that, then do the simple thing and buy everyone on your gift list a plant.

Truly the perfect holiday item, they are always the right size and color, have no calories, contain no alcohol, carbohydrates or fat. I don't believe they are ever returned by a dissatisfied recipient.

For years I have purchased a carload of poinsettias and Christmas cactus for aging aunts, uncles and neighbors who would otherwise be difficult to buy for. My father collaborated with me one year, issuing a challenge to get the largest poinsettia I could find for his brother, whose birthday fell the week before Christmas. We ended up with a flower as large as a tabletop. It lived for years in my uncle's sunroom.

This year I have a gift-giving dilemma. The selection of holiday plants has exploded to include tiny live evergreens, star pines, ivy trained to grow around wire star shapes, herb topiaries of rosemary, thyme and lavender, citrus trees, orchids and hydrangeas with blossoms in the shape of tiny stars.

Perhaps the variety has always been available, but not in such overwhelming numbers or at so many places. They crowd the shelves at grocery, variety and garden stores, the latter cleared of gardening supplies in favor of holiday wares this time of year.

Herb topiaries might push poinsettias out of first place for my gift giving this year. There is something cool about a dense, healthy little rosemary plant trimmed in the shape of a Christmas tree. Touching and trimming is encouraged, since the pungent fragrance becomes more distinct.

The poinsettia, however, remains the most popular holiday purchase for most people. Thousands of poinsettias will move through Cactus & Tropicals in Salt Lake City between now and Christmas. And even the old Christmas standby has changed. Traditionally available in red and white, they now grow with double bracts (the colored part of the poinsettia) red and white speckled bracts, ruffled bracts and a new, dark purplish, burgundy hybrid.

For me, part of the charm of the poinsettia is the lore surrounding it. It is a native plant of Mexico, and legend is that a young Mexican girl walking to church on Christmas Eve was sad she had nothing to place at the manger of the Baby Jesus. She decided to pick a bouquet of weeds. People laughed at her offering, but when she placed them around the manger, the tops turned into beautiful red plants with pointed leaves and the poinsettia, or at least a great story, was born.