Garden dream books
Just as the flow of Christmas catalogs dries to a trickle, a bounty of seed and plant catalogs begin filling mailboxes. And they arrive just in time, gardeners think: Winter is entering its coldest, dreariest stage, and those inspiration-filled catalogs fuel the hope that warm weather and the growing season are nearer than they seem. If your mail carrier isn't already groaning under the weight of garden catalogs, here's information on how to obtain a variety of garden "dream books" that will keep you reading until spring finally arrives.
BURPEE
Warminster, PA 18974
800-888-1447; www.burpee.com
THE COOK'S GARDEN
PO Box 535
Londonderry, VT 05148
800-457-9703; www.cooksgarden.com
JOHNNY'S SELECTED SEEDS
RR 1, Box 2580
Albion, ME 04910
(207) 437-4301
www.johnnyseeds.com
PARK SEED
1 Parkton Ave.
Greenwood, SC 29647
800-845-3369
www.parkseed.com
PINETREE GARDEN SEEDS
Box 300
New Gloucester, ME 04260
(207) 926-3400
http://www.superseeds.com
WAYSIDE GARDENS
Hodges, SC 29695
800-845-1124
www.waysidegardens.com
WHITE FLOWER FARM
PO Box 50
Litchfield, CT 06759
www.whiteflowerfarm.com
Other resources:
*The Mail Order Gardening Association offers a booklet with information about more than 135 catalogs. Send $2 to Mail Order Gardening Association, PO Box 2129, Columbia, MD 21045
*Serious gardeners shouldn't be without Barbara Barton's book, "Gardening by Mail" (Houghton Mifflin, $24). It contains an exhaustive list of mail-order plant sources. You can also access it on the Web at www.vg.com/gbm
*US and Canadian gardeners who buy a lot of plants and have a home computer will get a great deal of use from a new CD-ROM, Garden Catalog Profiles ($35 from www.norellsoftware.com or Norell Software, 36940 Fremont Road, Caliente, CA 93518).
*If you have access to the Internet, you can find a list of more than 1,750 catalogs at Cyndi's Catalog of Catalogs (www.mertus.org/gardening).
*Jim Kramer of the University of Illinois at Urbana Chamgaign maintains a source list of plants at http://fmweb.aces.uiuc.edu/pcf/ sources/about.html
(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society
