For years I had enjoyed and sometimes ordered from two garden companies that produced outstanding catalogs. If a garden catalog is carefully put together it can double as a compendium of useful gardening information. They are usually condensed versions of what amounts to garden dictionary definitions of plant requirements and descriptions. I received two of the catalog stalwarts this winter and the one lived up to expectations and exceeded, while the other has sadly gone the way of the carnival hawking aka most garden catalog’s hype. That is my opinion,anyway.
White Flower Farm continues to offer informative, while enticing, garden catalogs that not only present fine plant material, but help you garden better. This year they had page after page of imaginative container plantings, with the plant material offered at what I thought were very reasonable prices.
Wayside Gardens, however, is another story. Years ago they were bought by Parks Seed Co. and they now have a slightly gussied up version of the Parks style of catalog. Rather than usefully describing the plants, it has deteriorated to moderate hype of the common plant store type. Not anything terrible about the companies or their quality of service, I was just disappointed with the catalog itself. Park Seed does, however, have a very nice online journal. Hope they keep it up.
Today’s economic environment is not very promising for the future of print catalogs, I would guess, so this may be a print dinosaur on the way to extinction.
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