Are you wondering what to give the English gardener besides the usual gloves or watering cans? I’m pleased to recommend a new line of garden gifts available at Jane Austen’s House Museum, in Chawton, England. (Don’t worry – they’re available in the U.S. too – more on that later…)

I had the great privilege of working in Jane Austen’s garden back in 2005, as part of my award as the first International Visitor for JASNA (the Jane Austen Society of North America.) I spent that summer working with Celia Simpson, the head gardener at Jane Austen’s House, and learned a lot about how an English gardener approaches her work.

Now, Celia’s photographs from Jane Austen’s garden have inspired a new range of gifts with a garden theme. The gifts feature botanical illustrations based on Celia’s photographs, plus a sepia-toned image of Chawton Cottage, the house where Jane Austen lived the last eight years of her life.

The flowers represented on the gifts include classic English flowers like Sweet Peas, Snowdrops, strawberries, Nasturtiums, Foxglove, Grape Hyacinth, Poppies and Leopard’s Bane. Some of the gifts, like the postcards, include an illustration of all eight flowers. Others, like the key rings and bookmarks, depict just one flower per item.

I particularly like the note card pack which includes 8 note cards (one with each flower on the front) plus 8 sheets of notepaper and 16 envelopes. The luxury stationary package has 8 sheets of notepaper with flowers plus 8 continuation sheets plus 8 envelopes. The notepaper in the luxury package also has a very faint “Jane Austen” signature running throughout the paper.

The garden gift range also includes bookmarks, key rings, large and small postcards, large and small individual greeting cards, a notepad, and a shopping pad with magnet on the back.

Just in time for Christmas, there’s also a new Christmas card with a snowy scene of Chawton Cottage surrounded by holly, ivy, snowdrops and leopard’s bane. If you’re a Jane Austen fan yourself, you’ll want to wrap your gifts this year with the new wrapping paper. You can choose from several styles including the garden range of botanical illustrations or the charming Chawton Cottage wrapping paper. For Mr. Darcy lovers, you’ll want the Mr. Darcy wrapping paper where Colin Firth’s image is surrounded by cheerful red hearts! These would be perfect for wrapping Valentine’s Day gifts.

Everything’s printed on high quality paper. The attention to detail is especially nice. For example, the bookmarks each have a border across the bottom that matches the color of the flower on the bookmark.

So whether you’re looking for a gift for the Jane Austen fan or the English gardener in your life, you can’t go wrong with these lovely gifts.