Garden giveaways have one advantage almost nothing else in this catalogue has: the recipient does something with the item, and that something takes months. A seed packet handed out in April is still visible in July.

Seeds are the cheapest thing that gets planted

Wildflower and herb seed packets land at a low enough unit cost to hand out by the thousand, and unlike most cheap items they do not go in a drawer. Pair them with plant markers if you want the branding to still be in the garden after the packet is thrown away.

Tools outlast the campaign

A trowel, a pair of gloves or a kneeling pad is used every weekend for years and stored somewhere visible. These are the items to spend on when you want one gift per customer rather than a table of handouts — realtors, landscapers and garden centres tend to build their whole programme around them.

Time it to the planting calendar, not the fiscal one

Seeds handed out in September get thrown away. The window that works runs from the last frost through early summer, which in most of the country means ordering in February for an April event. Build the lead time in: decorated seed packets and printed tools are not overnight items in March, when every garden centre in the region is ordering the same week.