Garden Catalogs: A Tall Order

Many catalogs are written quite anonymously and read like a laundry list. So you need to have the patience to read it like you would the phone book, or at least know what you want in alphabetical order by Latin name thank you very much.

A few catalogs are worthy of the description "magazine" for either their copious wit expressed in voluminous text and jaunty illustrations, or for their generous two page spreads complete with graphic representation of the proper plant placement required to achieve the accompanying scene depicted in a dreamy four color sketch.

Favorite gardening catalogs can be taken to bed like old friends, sort of an annual bed time story to be enjoyed when the wind howls outside and the latest Canada clipper has branches knocking at your windowpane and the birds have all disappeared to hunker down and wait out the weather.

Sometimes we read the catalogs for gardening advice and suggestions, or to keep up with all the new varieties. I am always surprised when somebody can call a big ole red beefsteak tomato "new" and "different" and give it a special name, but every year somebody does it.

It doesn't matter, in the long run, what the catalog looks like or what it says or what the prices are or where the shipping zones go. They all get dogeared sooner or later, except for the losers that fall behind the bed and stay there, lost and forgotten among the dust bunnies.

The garden catalogs are our golden tickets out of winter, our inspiration and shining salvation. They each and every one bring us pictures of fondest imagination. That is to say, each catalog inspires its own peculiar pastoral visions. We read, we look, we drool. Sometimes, we even order.

Happy New Year!

Since 1997, I have written over 200 articles here at the Cottage Garden. Check them out!

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