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Garden Catalogs: Spring at Your Fingertips
| Article
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15868 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1989 |
1,399 Words |
| Author
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Walter Chandoha
Walter Chandoha's pictures and articles have appeared in many
major magazines; and he has also written and illustrated
twenty-four books. |
There's not much a gardener can do in January other than to tend houseplants or windowsill herbs. Although winter is less than a month old, it feels like it's been around forever. But no matter how bleak and cold the weather, with garden catalogs, spring is at your fingertips.
The inspiring garden views and mouth-watering close-ups of fruits, vegetables, berries, and colorful flowers in these catalogs set gardeners to dreaming. Flowers are always in their peak of bloom, never in need of deadheading. There's not a weed in sight--the gardens are either clean and cultivated or heavily mulched. Vegetables are at their peak of ripeness, and flowering trees and shrubs are in magnificent full bloom. What perfection grows in those paper gardens!
As much as I'm inspired by the seed catalogs, I've learned over the years to temper my enthusiasm with practicality. Too many times in the past I've ordered bulbs and plants in the idleness of midwinter and had no opportunity to get them into the ground at planting time. Now I'm more cautious but I still get carried away when it comes to seeds, always buying more than I can use and rationalizing if they're not planted this year most can be used next year.
The beautiful color photographs in garden catalogs entice the dreamer to buy. But before ordering, it's a good idea to study the text describing each variety. Is the plant under consideration suitable for your area? Will it grow in your garden, is it short or tall, does it spread, and do you have room for it? If it's a vegetable, will your family eat it if you grow it? (For years, I couldn't get my kids to eat zucchini; they finally succumbed when I laced it with lots of Parmesan cheese and oregano, broiled it, and changed its name to pizza squash.) Will the plant bloom at a time you can enjoy it? It's pointless to have a garden full of spectacular summer-blooming perennials and annuals if you spend the entire summer at the seashore.
Tomatoes
When reading a catalog, remember that what catalog-text writers don't say is sometimes more important than what they do say. Consider tomatoes. They are the No. 1 vegetable in family gardens because the homegrown fruit are usually better flavored than the store-bought. Yet if we're honest, some homegrown tomatoes can be almost as flavorless as those you buy in winter at the local supermarket. So when you read copy in garden catalogs describing tomato varieties, look past the glowing
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