The Arrival of More Catalogs!

15 years ago

It is not exactly the most wonderful time of the year, but the arrival this week of a couple more gardening catalogs make the cold, dreary, gray weather a bit more bearable.

Arriving this week? Catalogs from Bluestone Perennials and Park Seed, although the Park catalog is the Perennial and Shrub one, and not the main Seed and Plant one that usually comes right after Christmas.

I love looking at the catalogs, although I haven't had time yet to do more than just briefly flip through these two. Bluestone Perennials does have a lovely selection of salvias, though.

I don't buy a lot of plants through the mail and prefer to shop at nurseries. We don't have a lot of nurseries here in southern OK, and very few within a decent driving distance though, so I shop more from catalogs since moving here than I did when we lived in Fort Worth.

Anyone else receiving any good catalogs?

Dawn

Comments (10)

river22
15 years ago
Yes Dawn, I agree. The catalogs make my heart happy. I am already getting wound up about next years garden. Scouring the catalogs, making lists, re-designing.... oh spring come on...
tulsabrian
15 years ago
I'm new to this blog but thought I'd make a few comments. Catalogs so far ... Wayside Gardens (somewhat iffy to order from as is Park's but I've had better luck than most), Baker's, One Green World (fruit trees, bushes and vines if nobody's heard of them), Totally Tomatoes, and Michigan Bulb (I wouldn't recommend this company to anyone ... mentioning them just because of that).
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Well, Peppermint Pop and Milwaukee's Calatrava do sound interesting. I do object to their recommending the Brownell climber "Show Garden" for zone 4, but all in all they are doing a much better job than most with their hardier rose selections, aren't they? And that Bella Anna hydrangea on the cover really has me tempted although I'm a bit skeptical of a 4" pot for $15 + shipping! I just wish some local nursery here would carry Bailey's plants. I'll have to make my rounds again early this spring and put in requests - one of these years one of them may listen to me!
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Bonnie, what I did last year when there was an expensive seed at T&M that I really wanted was I googled it. Then I would look at the different vendors who had it, and then I would go to Garden Watchdog to check on the vendor. I usually buy seed from T&M, Johnny's, Territorial, Select, and Pinetree. Those are my main vendors, so I usually have their catalogs handy. If I can't find the seed I want in there, then I do the above and google. I've even posted here if I can't find what I want, because often people know of yet other reputable vendors that I haven't heard of, that may have the seed. Sometimes I can find something very, very similar, other times I break down and buy from T&M, if I really want the seed bad enough. I did that a few years ago with Zinnia Zowie Yellow Flame (although now that I think of it, I may have bought from another vendor - but they were all quite expensive - 10 seeds for $5). And I am so glad I spent the money, because every single seed germinated and they were fabulous flowers! Now I don't think twice about paying for that particular seed... okay, I lied, I do think about the fact that it was introduced a few years ago and I wonder why the price hasn't come down, but I don't hesitate to buy the $$$ Zowie seed anyway! :) Dee
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Kathy, These are the onion varieties recommended for Oklahoma in the OSU Vegetable Variety Guide for Home Gardeners: YELLOW: Granex, Grano 1015Y (Texas Supersweet), Yellow Sweet Spanish, Walla Walla Sweet RED: Granex WHITE: Crystal White, Granex, White Sweet Spanish BUNCHING: Evergreen White I'm not at all an onion expert, but I think all the above varieties are fairly sweet, or at least more sweet than pungent. Of the OSU-recommended varieties, I think the Yellow Sweet Spanish and the White Sweet Spanish would be the least sweet and most pungent. The problem with wanting to grow onions considered hotter, more pungent or more spicey is that the onions that grow best in the southern US are the sweet ones. The onions that grow best in the north are the more pungent ones. And, the types of onions that grow well in each area is determined by day-length. SHORT DAY ONIONS: These start the bulbing process when daylength reaches only 10-12 hours. Here in Oklahoma, short-day onions grow best. Short day onions grow well only in southern states, which would be everything from Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. southward. You can grow them in the northern states, but they remain small. INTERMEDIATE DAY ONIONS: Require 12-14 hours of daily sunlight to begin bulbing, so they will grown best in most of the south, except the southernmost parts of the southern states, but they also grow well through the states that sit one state or two above the southern tier of states. Here in the middle of the USA, for example, they can be grown in the northern half of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Above all but northernmost Kansas, you have to grow the next category.... LONG DAY ONIONS: These do best in northern states that have 14-16 hours of sunlight daily, and there are both sweet and storage (pungent) types that do well in the northern states. Here in the middle of the country, you can grow long day onions in the northernmost half, or maybe third, of Kansas (if planted very early) and then all the way north to Canada. Most of the more pungent or spicier or hotter onions (however you prefer to describe them) that I am familiar with are the long-day types. Can you grow long-day types in Oklahoma? Perhaps and, the farther north you are, the more likely they'd bulb up a little but they most likely wouldn't get as big as they do when grown in the more northern states. Since you are pretty far north in Oklahoma, I think you might have success with a Long Daylength type like Big Daddy (100days)(available from Dixondale online and probably other onion suppliers as well). A new long daylength onion at Dixondale that is supposed to be a bit more pungent is Sterling (95 days). I have grown one of Dixondale's long daylength specialty onions--Red Torpedo--and it did OK. It is, as the name implies, a long torpedo-shaped onion and not a round one. It is a sweet onion, so I just mentioned it because it was a long daylength type that did form a bulb here (somewhat). If you buy your onion plants locally (cause Dixondale's are very expensive), check the side of the wooden crate they're shipped in. Sometimes on the side, the word "storage" or "sweet" is printed either on the box or the label. Anything labeled "storage" would be more pungent than those labeled "sweet". I usually buy from Dixondale so I can get exactly the variety I want at exactly the time I want to plant it, so the extra expense is worth it to me. Sometimes my local feed/seed stores sell onions from Dixondale and sometimes they sell seeds from Bonnie Plant Farms. They all have about the same onions every year though, and they are almost always the sweet types, although at least the sweet spanish types are not quite as sweet as the supersweet types. You could try asking your local ag extension agent if any pungent type onions grow in your part of the state. And, if you decide to try growing a long daylength type, the earlier you can get them into the ground the better. Then, keep them well-fed and well-watered so you'll have the biggest, healthiest green tops possible at the time that bulbing initiates and that will give you a good chance of having some size to the bulbs. Dawn
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DigitDigitDigit..... I have a link to that site savedand I NEVER go there! For me its like looking in a thesaurus! I cant get back out! I wind up with fingers stuck in all the pagesand wishing I had more fingers! So what I did today is YOUR fault! I DID go to "that site" just to look, and an hour laterwhen I was supposed to be outside cleaning up perennialsI was still inside with my fingers stuck in my computer! Ouch! But while I was there I did look up the ratings on the bulb company, and now Im not so sure if Im gonna order from then or not! Half their ratings were positive, and half of them were negativesome of them VERY negative! Maybe Ill just leave the catalog laying around, to make a decisions laterwhich means Ill never get around to it! Actually, since I had never heard of the company, I was thinking of checking out the rating on Daves Garden before ordering anyway. But I really should get more serious about adding fall bulbs to my garden! When the few I have are blooming in spring, I always wish I had more! And I had never requested the Jung catalog I got either, so, checking that list, I guess I got both Jungs and the bulb companys either because I requested the Vermont Bean or the Totally Tomatoes catalogs! I really do wonder how long Ill keep getting some of these if I never order from them! Skybird
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Lisa_H OK
15 years ago
I received my Bluestone Perennial Catalog this week too. I was daydreaming over it this morning instead of getting ready for work :)

I usually order a few things from them, but on the whole I either grow from seed or, when I buy plants, buy from around here. I rescue plants from the half dead rack at Lowes and there is a small feed and seed company in Edmond that I like to buy from.

Lisa
devilwoman
15 years ago
I've been drooling over one from Heirloom Roses I received a couple of weeks ago. Going to have to out and survey the backyard so I can find places to plant lots of roses next spring!

Found a really pretty purple one to get my sister (her favorite color), and an own-root Joseph's Coat I could get my neighbor to replace the grafted one she has where the top died and it came back from the root. I could go broke easily wishing for roses!

Maybe I could win the lottery between now and spring and buy roses for everyone!
soonergrandmom
15 years ago
I got Dixondale, Pinetree and Totally Tomatoes quite awhile ago and yesterday I got Tomato Growers. I normally only order from Pinetree and Tomato Growers Supply. In the past I have ordered a lot more, but I can find a pretty good selection between those two and the (almost) local Atwoods.

I have participated in several swaps this year so I have many, many, flowers to try.
scottokla
15 years ago
I got my Tomato Growers Supply catalog today. It is the only one I get. I get most of my plants from the two local Bixby places and from Atwoods. Atwoods seems to be pretty good and also cheap for some of the ones I grow regularly. I live near Bixby, so I am really lucky.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
15 years ago
Scott, I got my Tomato Growers Supply catalog today too, and the Seed Savers Exchange public catalog and the Harris Seeds catalog as well.

The cover of the SSE catalog would make you drool--it has a gorgeous assortment of heirloom veggies. And, Harris is important to me because it has seeds for some tomatoes from its own breeding program that I seldom see elsewhere, although TGSC does have Harris' Primetime and Supersonic. This year Harris brought back Moreton, by the way, if anyone here has missed it and wants to grow it again.

Three seed catalogs in one day! I wonder if I will get anything done inside the house today, or if I'll just look at catalogs.....

Dawn
scottokla
15 years ago
I noticed that Tomato Growers Supply had a new one in it called "Royal Hillbilly" that came from the late Darrell Merrell.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
15 years ago
Scott,

I noticed that too. I love Royal Hillbilly and think it has superior flavor and production when compared to regular Hillbilly. Now, I'll tell you more about Royal Hillbilly than you probably want to know.

Hillbilly itself has been around a long time and is a bi-color (sort of yellowish-orangeish streaked with pinkish-purplish splotches) from West Virginia.

Darrell Merrell selected Royal Hillbilly from a patch of Hillbilly plants he grew out from seed given to him by a gardener from Collinsville, OK, named Ruth Marcum. She, in turn, got her seeds from her brother, Ralph Miller, who lived in Ohio. When Mr. Merrell grew out the seeds he got from Ruth Marcum back in the 1990s, he got plants with three distinctive types of tomatoes. He selected the one he felt had the best flavor and productivity and grew it out for several years to stabilize it and select the best plants each year from which to save seeds. Then he began offering the seeds through Seed Savers Exchange, and sold the plants every spring.

Royal Hillbilly has a different coloring from regular Hillbilly--it is a deep pink tomato with just the slightest tinge of purple to it, hence his choice of the name "Royal". In the mid-2000s Darrell found Royal Hillbilly to be his tastiest tomato and his best producer, and it slowly found its way into some commercial seed catalogs.

The flavor is hard to describe, but it is outstanding. It is a very sweet tomato with a bit of a tangy tartness. If I had to rank the flavor, I'd say it ranks up there in the top 5 in flavor along with Brandywine Sudduth, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim and True Black Brandywine on my "best flavor list". Wait, add Black Cherry to that list and make it the Top Six. In my garden it is a fairly early producer although its DTM is supposed to be in the 80-90 day range. It is a pretty heavy producer. It is on my permanent grow list, and I can't imagine ever finding a tomato that would knock it off 'The List'. I got my seed from Baker Creek.

Royal Hillbilly has been on The Tomato Man's (and later The Tomato Man and Daughter's) Top Ten List for several years, so if anybody wants it and they don't want to grow it from seed themselves, they should be able to get it in April from The Tomato Man and Daughter in Jenks.

I grow about half the tomatoes on Darrell's Top Ten list and need to try some of the others, because I like every one of his Top Ten that I've tried.

Dawn
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
15 years ago
Today's arrival is the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog, which is one of the earliest sources I used to find heirloom seeds. I think I bought from it and Seed Savers Exchange the same year, and they opened up to me a whole new world of "old" varieties, even though some of those heirlooms my dad had grown when I was a kid.

I haven't had a chance to look through it yet, but I can just about guarantee there will be something "new" (new to me) in this catalog that I simply must have. And, so far, except for a couple of flower varieties in the HPS catalog, and the Moreton tomato in the Harris catalog, there hasn't been anything in the catalogs this year that has piqued my interest. I have noticed that the older I get, and the longer I garden, the less "new" stuff I find. I mean, there's always new hybrids and AAS selections, but very few of them have any staying power.

I like it when the catalogs start arriving. It would be kind of nice to get one per day for the next month....it might get me through the dreary post-Christmas cold weather days when you can't do much gardening, except building beds and enriching the soil.

Dawn

The Arrival of More Catalogs!

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The Arrival of More Catalogs!

Comments (10)

river22

tulsabrian

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Lisa_H OK

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Okiedawn OK Zone 7Original Author

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