GARDENING : Read’em and Reap : Mail-order seed catalogues are arriving daily. They’re not only fascinating to look at, but they can lead you down a whole new path. : Read ‘Em and Reap the Results
On murky winter days when it’s too chilly to garden, I love curling up with a cup of herbal tea and the year’s new gardening catalogs.
It’s fun to discover new vegetables and flowers the seed companies have created. What vegetables have they made bigger, tastier, more disease-resistant? Will their new flowers bloom more vigorously and last longer? I start out overzealous, itching to order hundreds of seeds, but eventually narrow my selections to just a few.
Companies offer a wide variety of seeds and plants that you won’t find in the nursery. Some even carry rare seeds of plants near extinction. The myriad possibilities allow you to chose plants most suited for your garden goals.
The following list of catalogs will give you an idea of what each company has to offer. Catalogs are free unless otherwise noted.
* Burpee Gardens, 300 Park Ave., Warminster, PA 18974, (800) 888-1447.
Burpee offers a variety of vegetables, perennials, shrubs, trees and fruit vines. New vegetables offered this season include ‘Sequoia’ bush bean, a purple, flat, stringless bean that cooks to bright green and tolerates cold weather.
The company also offers ‘Sweet Gourmet,’ a hybrid Lebanese squash that is a staple of the Middle East and Latin American countries. It is a summer squash with creamy, light green skin that has a mild, slightly sweet flavor.
In flowers, Burpee Gardens has a new ‘Fun ‘n Sun’ sunflower blend of 10 new varieties in various shapes, colors and sizes.
* Gurney’s Seed & Nursery Co., 110 Capital St., Yankton, SD 57079, (605) 665-1930.
Gurney’s carries a wide variety of vegetable plants and seeds, from the ‘Purple Passion’ asparagus, an unusual burgundy color, to the ‘All Blue’ potatoes, which are blue.
The company also carries hard-to-find vegetables such as horseradish, rhubarb and jicama. You’ll also find many fruit and nut trees, flowering trees, shrubs, roses, bulbs and perennials, as well as gardening products such as beneficial insects. In the novelty section, there is a variety of ornamental corn and gourds, as well as millet seeds to grow birdseed and mushroom-growing kits.
* Native Seeds/SEARCH, 2509 N. Campbell Ave. No. 325, Tucson, AZ 85719, (520) 327-9123. Catalog $1.
Native Seeds specializes in native seeds from throughout the U.S. Southwest and Mexico. In the catalog, you’ll find the ‘Chiapas Wild’ tomato, a small, cherry-sized fruit that self-seeds and is prolific in the summer.
There is also the ‘Magdalena Big Cheese’ squash, one of the oldest types of cultivated squash. It is large and light orange with sweet, bright orange flesh. The herb ‘Chia Roja,’ is grown and harvested by Tarascan Indian farmers in southern Mexico. The pink seed is toasted and used as pinole and atole.
The company also carry seeds for cotton, lentils and garbanzos.
* Nichols Garden Nursery, 1190 North Pacific Highway NE, Albany, OR 97321-4580, (503) 928-9280.
Nichols carries many specialty and gourmet vegetable seeds, such as cardoon, Chinese bitter melon and artichokes. There is also a large variety of herb seeds.
New this season are the Senorita jalapeno pepper, which has the jalapeno taste, but is only a little zesty, and Correnta spinach, which grows well in warm weather. It’s particularly resistant to bolting and mildew, two problems that often afflict Southern California grown spinach.
* Park Seed Co., Cokesbury Road, Greenwood, SC 29647-0001, (864) 223-7333.
Park Seed sells 1,400 flower varieties and 400 vegetable types. This year it stocks the new ‘Heavenly Lavender hybrid’ petunia, a multiflora double petunia that looks nothing like the standard variety. The company also offers the ‘Red Fairy’ rose, which is a brilliant, deep cherry-red color and can bloom profusely all year in our mild weather.
The Pansy Sprite Hybrids is a ground-cover pansy that stays four to five inches high, spreading wide and blooming densely. There is also a variety of vegetable seeds and plants, including mini-tuber seed potatoes and sweet potato plants.
* Pinetree Garden Seeds, Box 300, New Gloucester, ME 04260, (207) 926-3400.
Pinetree has a wide selection of perennials and biennials, including ‘Carpatica-Blue,’ a campanula that is quick-spreading, vigorous and great for rock gardens.
There are also wildflowers, everlastings for drying, ornamental grasses and grains, a variety of bulbs and various vegetables.
The unique Pinetree cabbage mix includes a variety of cabbages that mature early, mid-season and late. The ‘Bubbles’ Brussels sprouts are new. This plant is tolerant of warm weather. It grows to three feet in height and has 1-inch round vegetables growing on a vigorous stalk.
The company also stocks a large selection of garden supplies.
* Seeds of Change, PO Box 15700, Santa Fe, NM 87506-5700, (505) 438-8080.
Seeds of Change specializes in organically grown, open pollinated seeds. This year’s catalog offers 439 seed varieties, including vegetable, herb and flower seeds. Among the wide selection of flowers is the new black hollyhock, which was grown in Thomas Jefferson’s garden.
The ‘Italian White’ eggplant is entirely white, creamier and less astringent than the purple types. It produces early and can be grown in containers. The company also carries a variety of quinoa, with instructions on growing and harvesting the grain.
Most of the medicinal herbs are attractive as well as useful, like the traditional borage, which has fuzzy leaves and blue flowers that bees love.
* Shepherd’s Garden Seeds, Order Dept., 30 Irene St., Torrington, CT 06790, (860) 482-3638.
Shepherd’s specializes in a variety of vegetable, herb and flower seeds, including annual flowering vines like the ‘Love-in-a-puff’ decorative vine that has finely cut leaves and papery, globe-shaped, 1-inch seed pods that look like little green balloons.
The company also carries a variety of everlasting flowers for drying, bouquet flowers, wildflower mixes, old-fashioned flowers and fragrant flowers, such as ‘Painted Lady’ sweet peas that date to 1737.
The vegetable collection is as varied and unusual, with the new ‘Caroline’ carrot, which is sweet and meaty and grows six to eight inches in heavy, sticky soil, such as our clay. The ‘Chocolate Beauty’ peppers are chocolate colored, smooth and very sweet.
* Stokes Seeds, PO Box 548, Buffalo, NY 14240-0548, (716) 695-6980.
Stokes carries a wide variety of vegetable and flower seeds and gardening supplies. New varieties of vegetables include ‘Tecumseh II’ corn, which creates crisp, high sugar corn. ‘Amini’ baby carrots grow cylindrical and smooth.
The ‘Athena’ muskmelon is oval-shaped with a small seed cavity and deep salmon, firm flesh. The ‘Stripetti’ squash is a new hybrid that is a cross between the ‘Delicata’ (sweet potato) squash and ‘Vegetable Spaghetti’ squash. Old standbys include the ‘Golden Beets,’ which are tender and don’t bleed or stain like red beets.
* Thompson & Morgan, PO Box 1308, Jackson, NJ 08527-0308, (800) 274-7333.
In the new Thompson & Morgan catalog you can find most flowers under the rainbow. There is a wide selection of flowers that are good for cutting and drying, such as the ‘Pastel Shades’ statice with it variety of soft-colored flowers.
The company also has several flowering cactus, such as the Epiphyllum T&M; Hybrids Mixed, an orchid cactus with sometimes fragrant blooms in various colors, including magenta, gold, scarlet and cream.
Flower mixtures in a variety of colors are also available, including the ‘Flower Dreams’ collection of easy-flowering annuals in blue, yellow, pink, orange, white or red.
* Wayside Gardens, 1 Garden Lane, Hodges, SC 29695-0001, (800) 845-1124.
Wayside carries many flowers and flowering plants and trees, including the new ‘Cherry Meidiland’ rose, which is covered from spring to fall with large single cherry-red flowers that have white and yellow centers. The leaves are glossy and disease free.
The ‘Paris D’Yves St. Laurent’ rose is a fragrant, salmon-pink hybrid tea with large flowers that last a week or more when cut.
In shrubs, there is the ‘Blue Wave’ hydrangea, which is covered with blue lace-cap blooms in mid- to late summer. The Cotoneaster apiculatus is custom-grown for Wayside. It has arching boughs of foliage that eventually touch the ground and create an umbrella effect. The plant’s deep green foliage is covered in late summer with hundreds of crimson berries, which stay on the plant throughout winter.
* White Flower Farm, PO Box 50, Litchfield, CT, 06759-0050, (800) 503-9624.
White Flower carries a huge assortment of flowers, including perennials, annuals, bulbs, vines, climbers and flowering shrubs. There is also a water garden collection that offers waterlilies, such as the ‘Panama Pacific.’ This has pinkish purple outer petals and deep lavender inner petals with golden centers.
The company also carries David Austin English roses, including the ‘Abraham Darby’ variety. This has apricot blooms and rarely requires pruning. The ‘Lambrook Silver’ artemisia has elegant, lacy, aromatic leaves and grows to about three feet.
