Gardeners Have Long Anticipated the Garden Catalog

Though most of the garden catalogs now appear online, there was a time not too long ago when the mail carrier brought the material publication, the garden catalog, right to your house.

Since gardeners are ever in search of the new and latest, they waited for that catalog.

The feeling of anticipating something new and beautiful for the garden seems to give a certain zest to the daily routines that life offers.

For a gardener the spring garden catalogs inspire that feeling of adventure.

Nineteenth century Philadelphia nurseryman Thomas Meehan also shared that fondness for the spring garden catalog. In 1883 he wrote in his magazine Gardener’s Monthly: “”I admire catalogues, and always read them, from preface to finis. They have a fascination about them before which the most entrancing novel ‘pales its ineffectual fires.’ Their charm, like the wonderful world of creation, is new every spring.”

Now that spring is here, and  you have seen the latest in online garden catalogs, the next step is to decide what among the new plants you want to grow.

Notice [above] that the John Salzer Company promoted on its 1899 catalog cover ‘Oddly Odd Gourds’. How enticing?