The Best Mother's Day Gift

This Mother's Day, as I have many times before, I chose not to buy a bouquet of flowers for my mom. Although I've always loved colourful blossoms, I've never understood humanity's fascination with chopping them off and taking them inside to wither and die within a week. It's also horribly wasteful to grow exotic flowers in foreign countries and ship them over here, again, only to last a week. For my mom this makes especially little sense, as she lives in a house with a gorgeous flower garden. At this time of year, every colour of the rainbow is represented right outside her door, and with a long list of gardening tasks, she's hardly indoors long enough to appreciate a bouquet if I got her one! My recommended alternative? A stroll through Toronto's High Park along the west hill by Grenadier Pond, where the cherry trees were in peak bloom this weekend. Beautiful flowers for beautiful mothers to enjoy, at no cost to us or the environment.

Your turn: did you do anything green for Mother's Day? Do you have tips for eco-friendly alternatives to the standard traditions?