On this chilly, icy March day, I’m convinced that I just raised the temperature in my office by simply opening the color-saturated pages of seed catalogs. Mmmm-hmmm! Better try and get control of myself, and get those feet back on the ground. Seed catalogs share a certain language, and each one seems to speak its own dialect. What they all have in common is the need to read carefully, and maybe the need for a black-and-white filter for the distracting visuals.

About the visuals: In this age of digital photography, it should be simple to take an honest, attractive picture of a plant in the garden. When it comes to printing catalogs, though, technology seems to whirl us back to the days of hand-tinted holiday portraits, or at least the heyday of Hollywood technicolor.

Word to the wise:  if it looks too good to be true, it probably is…

If the picture shows a bushel basket full of tomatoes or a vase full of cut flowers, ask yourself, "Why couldn’t they get a good one of the plant with fruit on it?" Quaint drawings are lovely, too, but they raise the same question for me.

True blue (as in sky blue, royal blue, blue if it’s a boy blue) is a rare color in flowers, restricted mostly to Delphiniums, Forget-me nots, Hydrangea and a handful of other flowers. True blue flowers tend to be a bit difficult to grow in this climate. I have never seen a blue rose yet. Period. End of Story.

But I am keeping my favorite pages open near the window in hopes that the snow and ice will take a hint.

Mail-order Gardening Part 1

People think of gardening as a hands-on activity, but I truly believe that nine-tenths of it happens in your mind. Hence the popularity of mail-order garden catalogs. I don’t know a gardener who doesn’t feel an elevated pulse rate when turning those gorgeous glossy pages full of blue poppies, 5-in-1 apple trees, tomatoes the size of basketballs, and everblooming, chocolate-scented, rainbow-colored roses.

Seriously, a good mail order catalog is a treasure-trove of information about special groups of plants, growing techniques, and specialty gardens. I’m a believer in buying locally when it comes to plants and produce. But it’s so much fun to supplement those purchases with rare and unusual seeds, tools, houseplants or other products, when you can’t find them in the neighborhood. Seeds, in particular, are a low-risk way to try something new.

Things to consider when sizing up a seed catalog or Web site:

Research! Read those less than spellbinding pages that tell you about the company, their history, location, shipping policies, and philosophy of life. Support a company you can trust and believe in. Organically-grown herbs and seeds are a common option now.

Look up what other customers have to say on sites such as The Garden Watchdog, a feature of Dave’s Garden web community . Look for companies that specialize in one thing, like vegetables or prairie natives, rather than brokering a dizzying array of different things.

Buy seeds and plants that are tested and grown in our zone or a bit colder, so look at the company address, too. Nurseries in Ohio, Illinois, Maine, Missouri and Wisconsin are more likely to have plants adapted to our shorter growing season, humid summers and generally abundant rain.

Coming next::

Part 2: Reading plant descriptions. What they don’t say is as important as what they do say.

Part 3: Tips on garden planning with support from the resources in the Eleanor Squire Library here at the Garden.

Posted by Ann McCulloh