This exquisite feeder of copper and cedar created and handmade by local artisans is just an example of the unique gift ideas to consider this holiday season.

Unique garden gifts are never easy to find around the holiday season.

By then, most of the interesting garden material is either sold out from the previous summer or stored away in the back waiting to be brought out in the spring.

Fortunately, over the past couple of years, I have come across, and wrote about, some of the finest and unique garden gift ideas possible.

Some are for the birds, some are for the bees, and some are just plain works of art that any gardener and nature lover would love to have in their gardens.

These gift ideas are not available at Big Box stores and few specialty stores even carry them. These unique garden gifts are purchased directly from the outstanding artisans and craftspeople toiling away in their workshops.

All of them ship to customers in the United States, Canada and around the world.

Here are three unique garden gift ideas that I use in my garden and consider to be not only exquisite pieces of craftmanship, but outstanding pieces of art. Two of the gift ideas – the bird houses and the native beehouses – are also hard-working utilitarian pieces for the garden.

The copper and cedar handmade bird feeder

It’s hard to put a price on great design and high quality craftmanship, but if you could the Q&A Ultimate bird feeders would fall under the priceless category.

These are not the heavy duty feeders you fill to the brim with sunflower seed and let the birds and squirrels have their way. We can pick up those feeders anywhere.

These are exquisite little teardrop, fly-through feeders meant to hang by your patio or deck where they’ll likely steal the show whether there is a cardinal or chickadee sitting on the perch or not.

The copper roof is the first indication of their fine craftmanship, but upon closer inspection, it doesn’t take long to recognize the attention to detail in the two perches at both ends of the fly through and how the seed is fed into the inside chamber of the bird feeder.

It’s all the work of French (from France) architects Coraline Allard and Pierre Quesnel, who came to Canada and eventually set up their design business in Toronto. The bird feeders were one of their first ventures and, since that successful launch, the couple have gone on to design a number of exciting creations, including an aluminum beer box – another perfect gift for the “beer drinking” woodland gardener.

In addition, Ferns & Feathers readers (by using the code provided here) will get a 15 per cent discount at the Q&A Etsy website when they make a purchase.

You can visit the Q&A website here.

The couple was featured earlier in this full-length Ferns&Feathers story that you can read here.

Joe Prytula with one of his WeeBee houses is his backyard workshop.

A native bee house that works

You can run out to your local store and pick up a bee house, complete with bamboo straws and holes drilled into wood. Some are okay, others were never meant to really be used more than one season and still other designs are likely more dangerous to our native bees than helpful.

That’s not the case with Joe Prytula’s WeeBee Houses. These things are seriously well-thought out, well made and fun to put up and watch as the native bees find the perfect spot to go to work.

The mason bees, the leaf cutters all finding a safe and happy home in these outstanding works of craftmanship. Joe doesn’t just sell you a native bee house. Included in every WeeBee house is a thorough explanation of how to use the bee house properly to ensure the bees hatch the following spring. Also included are tools to remove the larvae from their homes and store them until their spring release.

weebee house native bee home with crabapple in background.

Talk about the perfect educational gift for children, especially those with a particular interest in nature.

Joe hails from the Niagara region in Canada but ships his Weebee houses to the United States and worldwide.

If you are interested in purchasing one of Joe’s WeebeeHouses, you can either contact him through his instagram account @weebeehouse or by email at weebeehouse@gmail.com.

Joe offers a discount to Ferns & Feathers readers. Be sure to give him the discount code FernsFeathers10 to receive a 10 per cent discount.

Check out my full story on the Joe’s WeeBee houses here.

To complement Joe’s Weebee house, consider adding Our Native Bees book by Paige Embry. The two would be the perfect combination for gardeners discovering the joy of native plant gardening and attracting native pollinators.

For my compete story on Our Native Bees, take a moment to check out my full story here.

Fish In The Garden work their way through our garden and around a moss-covered boulder.

These ceramic Fish are at home in any garden

Brilliant works of art are often described as beautiful, moving … inspirational. Tyson Weiss’s ceramic Fish In The Garden are all of these things and more.

The “more” is the unique ability to take these works of art and use them to design your own art installations in the garden by moving them around and finding new inspiration in different areas of your garden, even inside your home.

By creating schools of three… five … seven fish swimming through your flower beds, fern garden or around a moss-covered rock in the Japanese garden, for example, you not only experience the art but have the opportunity to create your own installation.

The ceramic fish are made to stay out in extreme weather conditions (either extreme heat or cold) and can add a pop of colour to gardens when colour is at a premium – either in shade gardens or in today’s urban contemporary gardens where the focus is more on textural greens than colourful flowers.

I use two main schools of fish in our garden and a couple of smaller ones for our window boxes and patio container pond.

No other garden art comes close to providing a sense of movement in the garden while at the same time providing me with the opportunity to move the installations around to take advantage of the changing seasons, and highlight particular areas of the garden throughout the seasons.

Tyson works out of his impressive studio in Maine but regularly ships to clients around the world even as far away as Australia.

Fish in The Garden add some pop to a window box

If you are interested in more information on Tyson’s outstanding work, check out my full article here.

To go to Tyson’s informative Fish In The Garden website go here.

In conclusion

Ferns & Feathers makes a real effort to find artisans that offer unique garden gifts that are of the highest quality. These three suggestions are guaranteed to impress anyone lucky enough to receive them as gifts.

They are not just garden items that are thrown away in a few years. All of them are made to last and age gracefully in your garden. As a result, they are priced to reflect their high quality and unique attributes.

They are the type of garden items that can be enjoyed for years and then passed on to children or friends.

They are at home in the woodland garden, the urban garden and even small, balcony-style gardens or backyard patio gardens.

Supporting small artisans is critically important during these difficult times and what better time to tap into their incredible talent than this holiday season.

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