« City Trees | Main | Dale Chihuly »
March 09, 2006
Catalogs
 |
By now, we at Citygardenguide have an impressive collection of plant catalogs, they have been arriving since Christmas and we have been perusing them for almost that long. But have we ordered anything yet? No! We are still trying to winnow our list to a reasonable length. Our eyes are always bigger than our garden. There is also the problem of design vs. desire. We desire every bizarre, beautiful or rare introduction we read about- but our gardens really call for design with more restraint, discipline and control.
Over the years we have come to rely on a handful of catalogs whose offerings are so appealing year after year that we can't resist them. For the most part they represent smaller specialty nurseries. Often they use delicate line drawings instead of expensive photos to illustrate their offerings. And they all have chatty informative essays about garden doings that make you feel that you are part of their larger gardening family. It's not uncommon to get a handwritten note with your order if there has been some problem or substitution. Most of these nurseries have extensive online catalogs as well. But we would rather crawl into bed with a pencil and an old-fashioned paper catalog than fall asleep over our PowerBooks.
These are our favorite Catalogs:
Digging Dog Nursery
P.O. Box 471
Albion, CA 95401
www.avantgardensne.com
Its annuals and tender perennial sections are really exceptional. Especially useful for creating unusual combinations for pots.
High Country Gardens
2902 Rufina Street
Santa Fe, NM 87507-2929
www.songsparrow.com
Song Sparrow doesn't have the cozy charm of some of the more artisanal nurseries, but it has an excellent selection of plants, all grown in Wisconsin so they are reliably hardy here. It also has a world famous peony breeding program and a vast selection of peonies.
Heronswood Nursery
7530 NE 288th Street
Kingston WA 98346
www.SingingSpringsNursery.com
This nursery has a fabulous collection of tender (here) salvias, and a pretty fine range of those uncommon tender plants that are so fashionable now. This is the kind of nursery where they will send you an extra plant if they don’t think the one you ordered looks healthy enough.
Roslyn Nursery, Inc.
211 Burrs Lane
Dix Hills, NY 11746
www.forestfarm.com
If by any chance you can’t find what you need at Roslyn, go to Forest Farm. Its catalog is substantial and encyclopedic. Its further away (Oregon vs. Long Island), but we have always had very good service from them, and you can generally find the obscure variety of whatever that you are looking for.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at March 9, 2006 03:11 PM