Make Your Moms Proud

We love our mothers, and we love Mother Earth too. So this Mother's Day, buy a gift that's good for both.

A traditional mom will appreciate pesticide-free, organically grown flowers from Organic Bouquet (www.organicbouquet.com). But she'll enjoy the blooms year-round if she can plant them in her garden. If she's green-thumbed, buy her a Bearded Iris available through Local Harvest ($9/2 plants; www.localharvest.org) and a copy of Maria Rodale's Organic Gardening (1998, Rodale Press, $4.85; www.amazon.com).

Mother's Day is also a good time to treat mom to an expensive luxury she wouldn't typically buy for herself. Oliviers & Co.'s Ecocert-certified organic line of olive oil skin care products can be purchased as a gift set, which includes one each of their face, hand and body creams, liquid hand soap and bar soap ($96; available by phone only, 877-828-6620). It's also a good time to buy ethically sourced, sustainably mined jewelry, like a pair of Winslow earrings from the Premier Eco Jewelry Collection by Moonrise Jewelry, made in the U.S. from Wyoming green jade and fairly traded Mesa Verde peridot and sterling silver ($76; www.moonrisejewelry.com). See our Fresh Finds blog on this company.

Or appeal to her sartorial side with an Ahimsa Peace Silk Scarf ($40; www.petacatalog.org). Ahimsa peace silk is gathered from silkworms that are allowed to emerge from their cocoons on their own, rather than boiling them alive as is done in conventional silk production.

The scarf will keep her warm on those cool spring days when she's out shopping, and for that, you can buy her a reusable Sea Bag ($110 for a large tote; www.seabags.com), made from recycled sailboat sails. The large, sturdy totes will stem the tide of plastic bags that build up in landfills, never biodegrade and pose threats to birds and aquatic animals, like endangered turtles, who mistake them for food. On her behalf, save some silkworms; save some sea turtles.

If you're completely stumped about what to give, consider a gift that requires absolutely no resources, like a massage. You can also give her a little vacation from the kitchen: A homemade dinner with local produce from your farmer's market speaks volumes, and add some brain-healthy, contaminant-free wild Alaskan salmon for her long-term health. A 1/4-pound Maple-Smoked sockeye fillet from Wild Alaska Smoked Salmon will run you a mere $12.95 (www.smoked-fish.com, 888-945-3533).

You can also go shopping at ABC Home & Planet Foundation's MISSIONmarket (www.abchomeandplanet.org). The Foundation has selected 15 environmental, humanitarian and social charities and provided a "store" of sorts where you can buy Gifts of Compassion, be it a quarter of an acre of rain forest in Central America or a month's worth of food, shelter and counseling services to an abused woman and her children in Egypt. The gifts will be presented to your mother in the form of a certificate packaged in a reusable silk pouch.

For other mom-appropriate gifts, see "Better Blooms, Bon-Bons, Fine Wines and Java" at www.thegreenguide.com. And for earth-friendly ways to wrap them, see "Green Wrap and Gift Bags" at www.thegreenguide.com.