String Theory: The Gift Every Gardener Truly Wants

- This article has been unlocked for everyone to read after its author James Alexander-Sinclair won Digital Writer of the Year at the Garden Media Guild awards 2025. Want to hear more from The Garden Collective? Subscribe now.

It’s Christmas.

This statement is likely to provoke a number of different reactions.

"I have had the decorations up since early October.”

“It is a gross and vulgar commercialisation of a religious holiday.”

“Really looking forward to gathering my extended family in one place for a day of untrammelled joy.”

“I am going to Baffin Bay and may be back in the spring.”

“Nice rest, lots of food, new episode of Gavin and Stacey: can’t get much better in my opinion.”

“I hate everyone.”

A mixed bag of reactions.

Humbuggy

However, no matter how the season affects your mood, one of the things that almost all of us will need to think about is buying something for someone - partner, parent, child, colleague or neighbour. In everyone’s life: somebody, somewhere deserves a thoughtful and well chosen  present. Shopping is relatively easy for children as they will have parents who can provide useful guidance. Trickier for adults- especially those who airily announce “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t really need anything so whatever you think”.

That is unhelpful.

If the loved one in question has a hobby or something that you know will appeal: if, for example, they are gardeners, that can help a lot. However, one of the big mistakes to avoid making is giving a gardener an unsolicited plant. Sounds like a good idea but in reality it is not - they will have ideas about which plants they want and to suddenly be presented with something unexpected will not always be popular.

If this is the way you wish to go then ask first: I know that this will take away the pleasure of surprise but it will save the embarrassment of trying to find somewhere to plant something just out of politeness. Only last week I visited a client who had been given one of those miniature multicoloured weeping willow things that look like a ra-ra skirt dragged from a ditch. They had planted it in a prominent but grossly unsuitable place by the front door. I cocked a quizzical eyebrow.

“Yes” they sheepishly replied “we were given it and thought we had better plant it before they came to lunch”

Gifted plants, like Catholicism and privilege, can come with attached guilt.

Instead there are accessories, tools and useful gizmos that might go down better.  Socks are also useful gifts - especially socks that are not only warm but do not fall apart when worn in boots. There are some really sensational ones made from the wool of happy Alpacas that you can buy from the Horatio’s Garden shop (this will also allow you to help one of the very best charities operating anywhere.)

However, speaking personally, what I would really like for Christmas (and I think many other gardeners would be with me on this particular boat) is a ball of string.

Stringing along

All gardeners need string for multifarious purposes because gardening is an endless sequence of string based tasks. The modern world is all very well and has come up with a lot of labour saving and life enhancing inventions. The heart transplant, the mobile telephone and alcohol free beer - to name the first three that popped into my head - as a result various other things (necromancy, carrier pigeons and orange barley water) have become if not completely redundant then a lot less popular. However, I am prepared to stake a lot on the certainty that things always need tying in or tying up or strapping down or yanking back into position and for this we will always need string.

This may well sound like the opening of the most boring dinner party conversation you are ever likely to endure but have you, any of you, ever given much thought to string? Probably not and why should you? It is one of those things that we take for granted: it has always been there doing tasks that are usually mundane and unapplauded.

Ideally that string should be Jute, Hemp or Sisal  rather than anything artificial.  For that extra frisson, it should be tarred not only because that makes it extra weatherproof but also because it smells good: a heady and almost erotic mixture of hot tarmac and salty sea dog. As a variation on this I am in possession of an eye wateringly expensive ball of Swedish string that has been lovingly bathed in pine resin from snow dusted northern forests. I found it in a tiny shop selling all sorts of unnecessary stuff tucked away in the Gamla Stan area of Stockholm . It might seem an odd thing to bring back from holiday but it makes me disproportionately happy. The scent is delicious and I only use it on the most special jobs. This not one for tying up dahlias or supporting slumped beans: this is for the best climbers and lashing the branches of important trees. That way it will last until I have saved up enough money to buy another one.

Jute box jury

Jute twine was unknown in Europe until about a quarter of the way through the Nineteenth Century. Before that gardeners tended to use either thin strips of hazel, raffia - which is basically grass - or rags. At The Newt (an extraordinarily spiffy garden surrounding a hotel in Somerset) they use old bedsheets to tie in their fruit trees (of which there are a lot). This is a good bit of recycling: one day the zillion thread count sheets are snuggling a scantily clad celebrity, the next they are torn into small strips to cosset a Peasgood Nonsuch.

An enterprising fellow called George Acland kickstarted the jute industry after seeing gardeners using it in the East India Company’s Botanic gardens in Calcutta. He set up a factory in Scotland and soon Dundee became known as the world centre for string - a title that it sadly no longer holds although it is still internationally renowned for its fruit cake, marmalade and being the home of The Beano. The East India Company have an awful lot to answer for but exporting string is something for the plus column.

Sisal comes from a Mexican agave - the same plant that can be distilled into Mezcal . Hemp string comes from Cannabis sativa. As a niche quiz question it is interesting that two plants used in the manufacture of string have intoxicants as byproducts. There are, of course, more modern string equivalents made from squishy plastic and wire but the big advantage of  natural fibers is that they will stretch and fray as time and weather passes rather than hanging on for decades constricting the growth of plants. An espaliered  tree being slowly garrotted by a plastic tie is a sad sight indeed.

If you are now fully equipped with string then you will also need a penknife. Our forefathers always had a knife in their pocket and I try to do the same. It is oddly comforting and  harks back to the days when Boy Scouts wandered the country with pockets full of useful things like  conkers, wrapperless toffees and penknives with a spike designed to get stones from horses' hooves. I have an unnecessarily large collection of penknives and am always up for a new one. A neat wooden handled number that I remember living in my grandfather’s waistcoat pocket and which my father used to dig dandelions from the lawn. A very long bladed knife whose original purpose is lost in the mists of time but looks extremely dangerous. There are two that I have bought from Niwaki (who import wonderful stuff from Japan: the equivalent of crack cocaine in the world of garden accessories) and a curvy knife that came free with Gardens illustrated years ago. Be warned, however, that there are certain places (like cities and airports) where it is best to leave them at home.

So what would you like to find under the tree?  I vote for a neat knife and a ball of string over skimpy pants and aftershave every time for, without string, we would be in the soup. Give them string this Christmas: it may not be terribly romantic but it is a gift that keeps on giving.