Holiday gifts that keep on giving

it on stones in a glass hurricane or combining it with spring-flowering bulbs like tulips, grape hyacinths and crocus.

Provide some aromatherapy, flavor and beauty with fragrant flowers and herbs. Lily-of-the-valley may be a bully in the garden, but it’s a fragrant beauty sure to brighten a winter day when planted in a container and enjoyed indoors. The calming fragrance of Spanish lavender can be enjoyed fresh or the stems and flowers snipped, dried and added to bouquets and sachets. Rosemary’s flavor makes it a perfect gift for the foodies on your list. And everyone, including non-cooks, will enjoy its fragrance. Grow it indoors in a cool location with morning sun or under artificial lights.

Take care of this and multiple holidays throughout the year with a subscription of 3, 6 or 12 Months of Blooms (gardeners.com). Your recipient will enjoy bouquets of bulbs or flowers sent on this and other holidays like Valentine’s Day, Easter, and more. Just place your order once and you’re set for a few or all of the major holidays throughout the year. This is the perfect gift for the person who has everything or anyone that can use a little floral pick-me-up.

Make this the year you give the perfect gift; one that’s unique and is sure to provide instant smiles and weeks or months of fragrance and beauty. Melinda Myers is the author of more than 20 gardening books and host of The Great Courses’ How to Grow Anything DVD series. Her website, www.MelindaMyers.com, offers gardening tips and videos.

Amaryllis bulbs, like this Grand Amaryllis Trio, produce showy blooms that can last up to a month or more. Photo courtesy of Gardener’s Supply Company