Friday, December 19, 2014

Shop with us for your last minute Christmas gifts!


We just received another shipment of poinsettias to go along with the rosemary and lavender trees. These plants are nice to decorate with, and they make unique gifting items. We also have a few Norfolk Island Pines that are fun to decorate for the holidays and then can be enjoyed in the house the rest of the year. Take them to your Christmas parties!

Our gift department has some new thermometers and outdoor clocks. We also just got in some new solar stakes and a few decorative pieces for the outdoor areas. We have new birdhouses, new hanging décor and a new rain chain option! Our Kinetic spinners are very colorful, unique and intriguing yard art. The art poles, flags, mail wraps and mats make great gifts and are wonderful decorative pieces around your own home during the holidays. We've had lots of questions about the art poles here in the store. Be the first one in your neighborhood with the new trend, or give them as gifts to family and friends!  

We continue to stock a great selection of rain gauges, tools and chimes to gift and have added a new bamboo chime to the mix. They can remind you of warm weather, and sandy beaches, during the cold months of winter.  The indoor gardening items like the heat mats, germination stations, the new thermostats and grow lights also make great gifts for winter activities for gardeners.

Seed packets, trinkets and tools are fun stocking stuffers and why not drop a few paperwhites in the stocking too to grow inside this winter!  We've even got kid's covered with their own tool line. Get them set up to help you work outside this coming year.
To top off all the new items in the store, we also have winter containers you might consider gifting. Check out the hanging baskets at our front door and the drop-in pots you could surprise your relatives with for the holidays. Now that is definitely the cool and unexpected gift!

If you're still not sure what to gift this holiday season, or to stuff in the stocking, give everybody Skinner gift cards! You can purchase them in any amount and they have no expiration dates attached to them, so people don't have to use them all at once.  How wonderful is that?! It just might  be the best gift at the Christmas exchange this year. Santa definitely approves!

It's an exciting time of year around the store, and we sure have a lot of neat presents for the gardener's on your Christmas lists. Come shop at Skinner's for your last minute gifts.

New Item! Outdoor Clocks and Thermometers!

Outdoor Clocks and Thermometers


New items in the store are the outdoor clocks/thermometers. They have arrived just in time for Christmas! We have a very nice thermometer, and two great options that have clocks with a thermometer in them. These are useful and attractive outdoor accessories for all yards. Stop by and check them out. They would make great Christmas gifts!

Friday, December 5, 2014

Cameron's Message 12/5/14

We are officially in the Christmas Season!

All the plants have been tucked away into our overwintering structures and Christmas trees, greens, wreaths and winter porch pots have taken their place…ahhh, the fresh smells of the season! Inside, you’ll find poinsettias, amaryllis and of course, lots of great tools and gardening gadgets.

At home, I’ve wrapped things up for the season too. The planting is done, I’ve spread the last wheel barrel of mulch and I’ve put my own tools away for the season. Landscape projects have now been replaced with holiday decorating projects. The Christmas lights are up, the inside of the house has been transformed (okay, my wife did all of that!) and working up some winter porch pots is definitely in my future.

It’s only been a few weeks of “winter” and already my mind it scheming on next year.

That’s just the way all of us gardeners are wired. We’re always looking ahead and making plans for the future, anticipating all the great things to come…hopefully!

There’s nothing wrong with that, just make sure you take time to enjoy today.

It’s easy to get caught up in the hectic pace the Holiday Season brings and sometimes that can lead to too much focus about tomorrow and not enough on today. I know I’m guilty of it.

My advice, slow down and enjoy!

Enjoy everything this time of the year brings. Celebrate the Season with family and friends and enjoy every day to the fullest. There’s lots of down time in January to worry about the garden!


Happy Holidays!

-Cameron Rees

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Great Books for Gardners

A few weeks ago on my radio program, I got a question about my favorite gardening-related books. I quickly came up with two of my favorites, The $64 Tomato, William Alexander and The Last Child in the Woods:  Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv.

The first is a humorous story of the fanatic passion we all share when it comes to our garden. Read it and see if you don’t connect with the author’s experiences. I know I did!

The second is a much more serious look at how the absence of nature in our children’s lives is so directly connected to so many of the issues our younger generations face. This is one that everyone should read. If you grew up playing outdoors as a kid, like most of us did, you will connect with this one.

I put out the call for other favorites and got all kinds of recommendations. I haven’t read any of these, so I can’t tell you anything about them, but a lot of them certainly have caught my eye. I’m definitely going to add a few to my own wish list. If you have a gardener on your shopping list this season, you might want to check out some of these titles too.

Garden Dreams, Ferris Cook
People with Dirty Hands:  The Passion for Gardening, Robin Chotzinoff
One Man’s Garden, Henry Mitchell
Rhapsody In Green:  The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverly Nichols, Beverly Nichols and Roy C. Dick
Prairie, A Natural History, Candice Savage
Wicked Plants:  The Weed that Killed Lincolns’ Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities, Amy Stewart
Wildlife Friendly Plants:  Make Your Garden a Haven for Beneficial Insects, Amphibians and Birds, Rosemary Creeser
Bringing Nature Home:  How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Douglas W. Tallamy
Legacy and Challenge, Rachel Carson
The Well-Tended Perennial Garden, Tracy DiSabato-Aust
Noah’s Garden:  Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Backyards, Sara Stein
The Informed Gardener, Linda Chalker-Scott
The After Dinner Gardener, Richard W. Langer
The Bad Tempered Gardener, Ann Wareham
How to Buy the Right Plants, Tools & Gardening Supplies, Jim Fox
Vince Dooley's Garden: A Horticultural Journey of a Football Coach, Vince Dooley

The Complete Book of Garden Magic, Roy Biles