16 Garden Gift Ideas Under $50 - Best Cheap Gifts For Plant Lovers

Despite its eccentric name, the Garden Weasel Cultivator is one of the most practical and thoughtful gifts for gardeners on your shortlist. It’s a tool for cultivating the soil, with three rotary blade wheels that break up the soil and clean themselves at the same time. When we asked Laura, our Junior Editor, for her go-to garden tool, this is the one she named, citing the ease with which it loosens dirt and blends in compost before planting day. 

Every gardener we know loves a rainbow, especially on the wall in their plant room. The Crystal Suncatcher – delicate and elegant – is one of our inexpensive gifts for gardeners and, hung on a curtain rod, it offers your friend and their plants an endless supply of rainbows. 

Who says grown-up gardeners don’t like to play? In fact, many would classify planting and pruning as a mix of fun and magic. So why not bring a little extra enchantment into a gardening friend’s life with a charming fairy garden set?  It includes fifteen handcrafted pieces, including fairy patio chairs, a bird bath, and even butterfly-shaped stepping stones. 

I must admit that I am a big birch tree fan, so these solar garden lanterns that cast shadows of slender birches across the ground at night really speak to me. Though functional and effective, it is the beauty and ambiance of the gorgeous patterns that excite me as a gardener and gift giver. Just let them soak up sun for 6-8 hours, then they automatically turn on at dusk and off at dawn. Such easy elegance! 

Gardeners can’t spend every moment outdoors, especially in the winter. Help your gardener friends bring nature inside with the Framed Pressed Fern, one of our favorite handmade garden gift ideas. The fern herbarium offers lacy fronds pressed between two panes of high-quality glass, set in a silver floating frame. Each is different, one-of-a-kind, but all are delightful. 

Most gardeners love birds and it’s a good bet that many also enjoy fine wine. Cheap Christmas gifts for vintage wine lovers are hard to come by, so consider the Wine Bottle Bird Feeder a steal. This handcrafted item is sure to impress. The yellowed wine bottle is trimmed with copper to create an ornate and effective feeder for feathered friends in the garden. 

One of the most thoughtful Christmas gifts for gardeners is the gift of homegrown flavor, even in winter. Gift your gardener friend this indoor herb garden starter pack. Gift it to anyone really, because this kit truly is that easy! They’ll be savoring the flavor of five different fresh herbs in no time.    

Installing drip irrigation can feel more complex than brain surgery, but this kit was designed with the first-time user at mind. It offers a complete irrigation system perfect for flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs and vines, with everything needed to get started. The kit comes with 250 feet of tubing and helps save lots of water. It just needs to be attached to a garden hose. Our Junior Editor Laura found it much easier to set up than she expected. “One of my favorite gardening purchases ever,” she tells us. 

Gardeners travel, just like everyone else. These efficient irrigation timers are relatively inexpensive gardening gifts for those who are always calling on you to water their tomatoes while they are off in Bali on the beach. It will do a better job too, with run times from 1 to 240 minutes a day and intervals from six hours to once a week. Our Junior Editor Laura relies on this timer to turn her drip irrigation system on and off while she’s traveling for work – though I don’t think we’ve sent her to Bali yet. 

Is one of your friends dreaming of getting a fire pit but lives on the top floor of a high-rise? Take a look at the darling Portable Bonfire Candle and you’ll know just what present to get. Light up one of these hand-poured soy wax candles and you are in the land of campfire vibes and starry skies. Portable, re-lightable and entirely delightful, the long-lasting bonfires work as well in the garden as when you are camping, tailgating or at the beach. 

What gardener on your gift list couldn’t use a break, swinging gently in the backyard on a brightly colored hammock? This cotton hammock has some of the best reviews we’ve ever seen. Customers call it gorgeous, easy to set up, comfortable, durable, inexpensive, beautiful and sturdy. One girl uses it with her dog. People of 200 and 300 pounds feel secure it in. And the price is very hard to beat.

There's just something about marigolds that cheers up a garden. And this hand-printed marigold linoleum block print is sure to cheer up the gardener on your list – all winter long. The 5x7-inch print on acid-free Strathmore paper is a perfectly charming gift. It can be easily framed and set on a desk as a lovely reminder that spring is always just around the corner.

There is something mysterious about air plants. Hundreds of curious plants that live on air alone – no soil needed – and so many different species you can’t possibly know them all. The Air Plant Mystery set adds another level of surprise: it’s a mystery group of five different tillandsias. Though you won’t know what kinds will be included when you order the set, you can be sure to receive a good variety of texture, shape, and color. A perfect intro to air plants for any gardener! 

Gardeners are always messing around outdoors, so that makes them more likely than anyone else to encounter poison ivy or poison oak, those unwelcome plants with toxins that cause rash and awful itching. Tecnu Extreme Scrub works in the blink of an eye – 15 seconds is all it takes to remove the urushiol oil that causes problems. Itch gone, rash gone, no spreading. Laura, our Junior Editor, says that she worked on a TV show about expedition races in the Alaska wilderness and they all swore by this product. 

Everyone loves wild birds in their garden, but squirrels aren’t always popular. If you know a gardener who loves birds but is tired of pushy squirrels, the Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder is a great find. It comes fully assembled and ready to hang, with a little rain cover so the food and the birds stay nice and dry in the rainy weather. Two pounds of wild bird seed are included in this lovely bird feeder set for a surprisingly low price. 

If these gloves don’t inspire you to go out and get to work, nothing will. They are really bright and attractive, with flower patterns on three fingers and polka dots on the thumb and index finger. Tough enough for garden work but light, soft and pleasant to wear. They keep your hands warm and clean, and they wash and dry out nicely. For three pairs, the low price is astonishing.