Please add these to the list, Santa

Given the overstretched mail system, not to mention the North Pole's' global warming problems (sorry to hear about the flooding in Elf Toy Construction Factory 8), hopefully as a long-time dedicated reader of The Canberra Times, this will reach you this weekend.

Normally I don't really have a Santa list. I'm more at what museums and art galleries call "deaccessioning". Okay, I do have a garden fantasy list. Could Superman drop in for 48 hours to pull out every lingering weed, a few dead trees that may drop on the road, and build me a dozen fabulous stone walls, as well as relocate feral goats, pigs and bunnies to happy, ecologically appropriate homes? I would also like a sun/rain switch, and a large Victorian-style heated glass house, plus a place to put it.

But this year I've done too many zooms with thousands of lockdown kids who have no garden, not just in their homes but no trees or greenery to look out on in their street. Santa, I don't suppose many kids have plants on their Christmas list, but if you could magic some for them, it would be ... magic.

Firstly, please ensure there are trees along every street. Okay, this is good for global warming, Canberra warming and bird populations. But could the trees be fun for kids, too, with fruit they could pick? Self-pollinating almonds, cold-tolerant varieties of macadamias, white mulberries which won't stain clothes or cars or small fingers, pomegranates which the birds will adore if residents don't pick them first, quinces, olives (also fun for birds), snow gums because the wind shapes them into gloriously unique shapes, lemon-scented gums, and at least 2000 hedges of thorny finger limes to replace fences.

Next, grape vines. Everywhere they could possibly grow, for dappled summer shade and extremely useful grape leaves that aren't just edible but make excellent carbon capturing, easily recyclable "green" plates. Just drop your grape leaves, and they will decompose, as long as you drop them on soil, not the carpet. Cold-tolerant dwarf bananas are even better for this, as you can cut bigger plates from their leaves. Cold-tolerant dwarf bananas can be found for sale in Australia but banana movement is restricted in Australia due to the high potential for disease in the banana growing industry. The ACT is not a banana growing zone. Keep your reusable insulated coffee cups, but with grape leaves or banana leaf plates there is no washing up.

Then add green-leafed gifts for every household, the ones we all should have: a potted dwarf lemon for the patio or a stool by the sunniest window, or a giant hanging basket filled with the most essential herbs, to encourage home cooking. My essentials are thyme, oregano, winter savoury, sage, Vietnamese mint, lots of chives, and peppermint, plus basil planted each spring or summer, but I'm an old fashioned cook. Vary with joy.

Every household that doesn't have a garden also needs a salad basket hanging in the window, or a vast pot or two on the patio. You don't need to be one of Santa's elves to buy pots or baskets to give as gifts. Fill them with good potting mix and plant out with parsley, a cucumber plant or two, a cherry tomato bush, and as much frilly lettuce as you can fit in, so that there's material for a salad every night, or salad to add to lunch.

Please give families flowers. Flowers definitely add to the Household and National Happiness Quotient. A basket of fuchsias will bloom most of the year, and can be hung from the eaves, or a rail across the window, or a sturdy hook protruding from the wall if you own your own, or have a kindly or canny landlord (It will add to the room's value). Nasturtiums may bloom for years if kept warm and out of frost reach. Look for a long blooming prostrate grevillea and a REALLY big pot to put it in. Patio roses were given that name because they were bred to survive on patios, and many bloom with dappled light.

And for all of you who may be reading this, but don't have white beards, Santa bellies and a team of reindeer, but need to buy many gifts in the shortest possible amount of time, preferably in one place:

Step 1. Line your back seat and the boot of your car with lots of absorbent newspaper or old cardboard. N.B. If you do not perform this step you will be sorry.

Step 2. Drive to the garden centre.

Step 3. Get a very large trolley. Load up with hardy hanging baskets of indoor ferns or begonias that anyone with a kitchen or bathroom will have room for. Consider two matching topiary bushes for either side of someone's front door, or bay trees, which can be clipped neatly. Buy a dozen tillandsias that can be glued above the bathroom basin and will live on the steam from the shower. Give a gift voucher to the kids for whatever plant they might want, and be prepared to be surprised at what they choose: they may just go for the biggest, thorniest cactus possible and a fly-eating Venus fly trap or the dwarf peach bearing the most fruit.

Think of your friend's favourite fruit and buy its source; their favourite flower and make sure they have a certain supply. If their garden is now mostly shade in summer, give hydrangeas, or a native walking stick palm that will take up almost no space but give bright red berries for six months of the year in almost full shade.

Actually, I have no idea what you will find. Garden centres always have new and tempting plants for Christmas sales. Forget about gift wrapping, and just tie a ribbon round the pot. Just don't forget to line your boot with that newspaper, and drive home dreaming of greenery and fruit and flowers, and a heck of a lot of happiness for years or decades from the plants you give this year.