By JOE LAMP'L, Scripps Howard News Service

Starting seeds is like raising kids: an ultimate act of faith. Give them the right conditions, and they'll do the rest. It's a little easier with seeds, I admit. Provide warmth, moisture, light and a disease-free potting mix to support them, and you'll soon have healthy, garden-ready plants.

We're all familiar with gardens designed around flowers. But a landscape with only flowers can really be lacking. Don't get me wrong. I'm crazy about flowers. But if I had only one small area to plant, I'd use flowers as accents and concentrate on foliage as the major elements of the design.

Healthy, well-maintained gardens invite all kinds of wild guests. Some, like uninvited varmints, can do a lot of damage. Even beautiful, welcome birds can sometimes take a toll on fruits and other garden plants if you're not careful. But the humble toad is a garden guest that's always welcome.

Although they were discovered only about a century ago, African violets (Saintpaulia spp.) today are one of the country's favorite houseplants. Not surprising, they're easy to grow.

They say any task is easier when you use the right tool. And that's certainly true for gardening. But with thousands of tools on the market, from cheap and flimsy knockoffs to big-ticket vanity items, it's hard to know which tools are necessary to do the most efficient job. In no particular order, here's a basic tool set with what I consider gardening essentials.

Digging:

It's time to start putting together this year's "perfect" garden.

By winter, most folks have their garden tools put away for the season. But if you have overgrown shrubs, you may want to break out the loppers, saws and pruners for a little longer. Winter is the perfect season to prune most deciduous woody plants. The foliage is gone, the branch structure is visible and the plant is dormant, which prevents sap bleeding from fresh cuts.

Lots of folks bring their gardens inside over the winter months. All kinds of delicate perennials, tropicals, citrus, and even herbs and salad greens, not to mention countless new seed starts, can wait out the cold indoors if they have the right conditions.

Not all birds fly south for the winter. Some hardy souls tough out the cold, gray months, making them a bit brighter for the rest of us. Here are some tips to help show your appreciation to the winged wildlife of winter while making their stay a bit more pleasant.

I was recently asked to name my must-have garden gift ideas for the holiday season. I hadn't thought of this topic for years, so I really gave it some thought and here's what I came up with. I feel confident your special gardening someone would be quite happy with any of the following: