It's time to get out the seed catalogs and start planning what to put in the garden. The number of catalogs I've gotten this year has definitely dwindled. I haven't ordered anything from Burpee or Park in so long that they've finally taken me off their mailing lists. Fortunately, finding them on the Internet is easy now that I have DSL. (If any of you are still sending emails to hatsy@att.net, please change to hatsy@sbcglobal.net .)
Since I wanted to find out what new plants these two most popular seed companies were offering, I checked out their websites. Park has dozens of new flowers, but wow, have the prices skyrocketed! A single packet of pansy or impatiens seeds costs $3.25. A bare-rooted peony called Gardenia is $24.95. It probably does smell like a gardenia, but all peonies have beautiful perfume. K. Van Bourgondien, a nursery that sells only wholesale, will sell you 15 peony roots for $96.50, a mere $6.43 each.
Look at this new Shasta daisy whose blossoms resemble pompoms and bloom all summer. I had a clump of Shasta daisies that looked like daisies. They turned so black and ugly when they'd finished blooming that I finally got rid of them, so this new variety called Fiona Coghill looks really tempting. It's also a little more reasonably priced - $7.95 for a potted plant.
I thought all salvias were red, but Park has a new one called Rose Rhapsody that looks very pink. According to the description it has "an embarrassment of riches... blooms in early summer as well as in early fall, and is very aromatic, bringing dozens of butterflies to the garden." Who can trust these extravagant claims? On the web, Park's plant descriptions are about 4 times as long and involved and rapturous as they are in a printed catalog.
A few years ago scientists figured out how to produce Swiss chard in rainbow colors. I grew them for a couple of summers, and I must admit they were colorful, but tasted no better than regular ones. This year there are carrots and radishes in rainbow colors. Imagine eating orange radishes and purple carrots. Aren't we supposed to be thinking about flavor and texture? Or am I just old-fashioned?
Pinetree Seeds (www.superseeds.com) also has rainbow colors, especially in their sunflowers. There are 16 varieties, ranging from plain old yellow to pink, rose and lavender. Some are frilly, some two-toned, and many produce multiple branches of bloom. They also have reasonable prices - $.95 up to $1.50 for packets of 20 seeds.
I still get Gurney's catalog, and for 2007 they have a neat little cantaloupe called Li'l Sweet that is only one to two pounds. I've never had much success with melons, but these sound as if they are small enough that they just might be ripe before Jack Frost blows his freezing breath on the garden.
I haven't ordered a single thing yet. I need to do a little more planning and dreaming. Hope you enjoy brousing through the catalogs and websites. Just remember not to get carried away by all the tempting choices. it's easy to let your eyes get bigger than your stomach.
