I got 4 catalogs yesterday! So I have something to look at while being snowed in.

I got a new one this year - Select Seeds.
They have some nice sweet peas I might try - especially the older varieties since they tend to be more heat tolerant. They have some Papaver somniferum varieties I haven't seen before that look tempting.
And Salvia viridus - which I never see seeds for locally and only a few catalogs seem to carry it.

Broom corn looks interesting - I might try it again since it does well here and there's some nice color varieties in the catalogs.

I'm thinking of trying Burpee's Ruby Queen corn.

Ooh - just noticed another new catalog - Shumway's.
I haven't looked at it yet.

Yesterday I got High Country Gardens, White Flower Farm, Seeds of Change, and Cooks Garden. They have so many things, I might pop for some of the salvias in HCG, but often, the local nursery that I frequent to feed my habit orders stuff from HCG in bulk, and resells it here. Use that catalog more for info / ideas. WFF has a violet clematis combo with 3 of them, I eventually have good luck with most clematis and this looks like fun. There is also a Sambucas, something that looks really cool. I will first have to find somewhere to plant them, probably expand a bed in the front by the driveway. I'll get that done first, and then see.

Shumway's has that "Ultimate Opener" tomato which may well be a step up from Early Girl (could use a better name, tho' ;o). However, I want to order from Tomato Growers Supply this year and may be "forced" to try a different, really early variety like Jetsetter.

Red Star is supposed to be a cherry-sized beefsteak according to the catalogs. A gardening friend has sent me some seeds and IÂm pleased to try Âem. I also bought a Thessaloniki tomato at the farmers market last year and saved the seed. Looking forward to a large heirloom that may be early enuf for my garden. It had a "fruity" and mild flavor - not what I was expecting from an heirloom.

Jaliranchr, I've been happy with Big Beef for a fairly long time. It isn't really boring to have one that is dependable AND good tasting. Big Beef has done that for us.

Cnetter, we've grown Stokes' Summer Flowering sweet peas quite often. The claim is that they are a Spencer type and more heat resistant. They do well for us. Watch for aphids (aphids ALWAYS show up) and then don't make the mistake I made one year by spraying at mid-day. The insecticidal soap and the sun burned the plants right to the ground.

There's more in them there catalogs . . . !

Steve

So far I've gotten a catalog from Wayside, Bluestone, and High Country Gardens. I don't have room for a vegetable garden, and it is a struggle to get anyone at my house (other than myself, of course) to even eat their vegetables, but I am planning to grow herbs in containers on the porch. And maybe a sweet pepper too.

I'm not familiar with Select Seeds, Seeds of Change, or Cooks Garden. Do they sell strictly vegetable seeds, or flowers as well?

The plants I would like to add to my garden that I haven't grown before are agastache (one of the coral colored hardy varieties), heuchera (Peach flambe, Marmalade, or maybe the Caramel), and blue oat grass. The herbs I will grow from seed, but the rest I will probably order online, unless I get lucky and find what I want locally.

With Wayside, get on their email list, and in June, they have a sale of stuff thats over-stocked. Things like Peace rose for $4.00. At that price, its worth the gamble, and ours have generally paid off. We have over 50 rose bushes that came from Wayside sales, and I often will get 6 of one variety and plant them together for the mass effect, which works pretty well. I did bomb on some salvia one year, however. Got a dozen plants at 60% off, and they all died.

Heuchera does very well for me, and this past spring, I divided some of our original plants, the root mass was huge. My transplanting was successful.
Seeds of Change is a NM based organic outfit, flowers, supplies, and vegetables.

The best flower and shrub folks for the Rocky Mountain region, IMHO, are High Country Gardens.

There is a rose outfit in Utah whose name escapes me, that also has a very good reputation for the conditions.

I too got a catalog from Select Seeds for the first time, cnetter. Hope you find the perfect sweet peas.

David, I don't think you can go wrong with HCG. They are simply the best. I planted some wild 4 o'clocks on the SW corner last fall. I'm anxious to see if they take. I hope they do.

Steve, I was thinking Big Beef. I grew it a few years ago and recall it produced well. I didn't want to post that over at the tom board and get told to get an heirloom. I have several early and mid season heirlooms I am trying, but always need the reliable producers. :) I think I will go with Big Beef again. Thanks for the reminder.

High Alt, I got some very different purple, almost black poppies from Seeds of Change last year. Gotta have those again. They have a nice selection of lower water plant seeds. I also like Plants of the Southwest for seeds.

Got my Red Robin toms up in the south window this last week and they are drinking in all the sunshine from the reflected snow. Oh, goody!

Lavender from seed - - Thompson & Morgan has something new they call Ellagance Sky (no that's not a typo).

A couple years ago, I got seed for both Hidcote & Munstead. (Where do they get the names for these plants?? ;o) I think it was Munstead that germinated really well. Last season, these plants were at their "Leap" stage and DW was just sooo unimpressed. By the end of the season when we were cleaning up beds and finding room for other transplants, out they went!!

Almost hurt my feelings, I had high hopes for those lavenders. Fragrance! That's what we want - as well as some good looks. So, we'll probably try this Ellagance Sky and see and sniff.

Steve

David...
The name of the Utah rose nursery is:
High Country Roses

Wow, that's a shame about those lavenders - they are one of the easiest things I grow. I started with about 12 Munstead about 20 some years ago. Mustead is a dwarf type, but mine have reseaded themselves and are closer to whatever the non-hybrid original form is now. I harvest a rubbermaid tub of blooms every year for sachets.

Thanks, Plantlady. Before I forget, growing broom corn, aka sorgum, can be a lot of fun. Try for a seed description that includes lots of colors. I start the seed indoors and set it out the first week of June. Once established, its doesn't need a lot of watering, however if the soil is reasonably fertile, the plants get to a wonderful, 8 to 10 foot high and the seed heads are correspondingly larger. After the first frost, I cut the seed stems off and cure them, and they are very attractive, bundled up on a long branch so all the different colored seeds show.

I did these for years, gave them away for charity auctions.

I've gotten a few catalogs. HCG is my favorite.

Do most of you start your seeds indoors weeks/months before? I've never done that before. I've mostly bought transplants in my short veggie gardening career. I've only ever planted carrots, radishes, lettuce, spinach, flowers from seed right in the ground. Tagawa gardens not too far from me has a great selection of transplants but it would be nice to save some money since my garden is bigger now.

David-- is there such thing as a low water rose in your collection? I miss my roses-Double Delight was one of my favorites but with our well it seems so frivolous.

Charlene

I start about 20 flats of seeds indoors every year to get a jump on my short growing season. Squash, gourds, peppers, and most flowers get started indoors.

Some require stratification first - such as daylilies and roses, and these are in the fridge at the moment.

Corn, beans, peas, chard, and such get planted directly. Some that would blow away in the wind if planted directly, but appreciate cold, such as poppies, are planted in flats and put on the back porch out of the wind.

The seedlings started indoors get moved to the cold frames later - I really really love my cold frames.

And while you didn't ask me, yes there are plenty of low water roses if you aren't looking for a hybrid tea.

David52: The few things I ordered from Wayside last year were half dead upon arrival, and since it was in the fall, I have to wait until spring to see if any of them come back. So I don't plan on ordering from them this year, unless most of last year's purchase makes a miraculous comeback. Which heucheras do you have, and are how much sun do yours get?

Has anyone ordered from Lazy S'S Farm before? They have a lot of in depth information about their plants, and prices that are much lower than anywhere else I've found online. I'm tempted to order from them, as they are in Dave's top 30, but I'd love to know if any of you have any experience with them.

Charlene: I have several packets of herb seeds, but I'm like you, unsure exactly when to start them. Some of them I may keep inside on the kitchen windowsill, but a few of them, like basil, need more sun then I can provide indoors.

It is hard for me to think about planting anything in the garden when it is still covered in snow, but I bought some more houseplants the other day to satisfy that urge to garden, until it warms up outside, LOL!

Just about the only thing that I've had success with from Wayside is their June, on-sale bare root roses, and I wouldn't recommend them for much of anything else. My particular landscaping (using the broadest possible definition here) approach calls for big sweeps of a particular plant or combination of plants, so I have long lines and big clumps of this and that. One bed, for example, has a dozen coral-colored Tropicana with a half dozen chocolate colored Hot cocoa roses. Wayside sales work for this. If I wanted one particular rose, I'd look elsewhere.

Charlene, for low-water roses, so much depends on soil amendment and mulch. I have all kinds of hybrid teas, floribundas, climbers, and so on, and once established, with a heavy mulch, they thrive. I do get some winter kill, related to warm spells in the winter followed by more cold, but again the mulch helps avoid a lot of it.

For the heucheras, we've been propagating a plant given to us by a neighbor going under the generic 'coral bells". Looking at the catalogs, it has a leaf and bloom identical to "hollywood." I have them on the east side of the house, they get some sun, and they bloom all summer. This last time we divided them, I was sticking bits and pieces of the rhizomes everywhere, and they seem all to have at least sprouted a leaf or so. This coming summer we will see how well they do.

If anyone is actually interested - some varieties of rose take alot less water than others - some don't even need extra mulch. I have a few (about 30) hybrid teas that are deeply mulched and more protected, but these other roses get very little attention, so I'm able to have a few hundred of them.
Here's a few:

These should be in the HGR catalog.

Shoot - I deleted a bit - meant to say "If anyone is interested in non-typical roses."

Charlene, if you haven't already discovered this, get pelleted seed for your lettuce and carrots. It's SO much easier to plant than plain seed, and you use so much less of it because you can just plant pretty much what you want and don't have to do all that thinning later---which I never have the heart to do anyway! How can anybody kill all those tiny little baby plants!!! Harris has several varieties of pelleted lettuce, and four pelleted varieties of carrots--and they're a good company to deal with. I'll be going with Royal Chantanay carrots again this year. They were recommended by my brother, and I tried them for the first time last year. They can get HUGE and still be very tender and sweet, and, while mine didn't get as huge as my brother's do because of my "still in the works" soil, they got much bigger than any of the varieties I had tried the year before. The Harris catalog specifies that they're "good in heavy or clay soils." I've got heavy AND clay!!!

And, regarding the 2007 Catalogs----I've got a pile of them, but I've been being good and haven't looked at them yet! They're dangerous!!! I looked at the Harris catalog that just came in the mail today----and I want one of each! I'm not sure how long I'll be able to resist the rest of them! How good a support system do I have out there? Can I send my checkbook and credit cards to one of you to hold for me until I'm in recovery! This is the most dangerous time of the year! If I could just get out in the yard and start doing things I'd be able to forget about the catalogs. Is there anything I can plant in 2 feet of snow??? We're going to get more this weekend, so whatever I plant now will be well protected!

Help,
Skybird

I have a "What was I thinkin'????" box, full of seed packets that are unlikely to ever be planted. My prize is a 5 lb sack of some kind of small fava bean that I purchased because, somewhere in that January, catalog-induced delirum, it dawned on me that I could use them as a cover crop, or at that price, I could eat them since they were organic.

Dried, black fava beans have limited culinary appeal.

I thought our lavender plants were "nice" but CnetterÂs photo shows a lovely lavender with much darker flowers than ours. I picked a few of our flowers but DW didn't show any interest. I've never been very impressed by her sense of smell but they weren't really very fragrant. We had quite a few lupines to fit in and we also absolutely had to allow more room for self-seeded gaillardia or we are going to lose those plants.

The darn gaillardia doesn't seem to last very many seasons and yet, meanwhile, it reseeds freely - usually in the path. We beat down the seedlings then the older plants die over the Winter . . .

T & MÂs Ellagance Sky might not be what DW is looking for either since it is described as "sky blue." Well, it may just mean more room for the always-on-the-march gaillardia and a reprieve from the spading fork.

Charlene, starting plants indoors (tomatoes are probably one of the easiest) isnÂt very difficult. You just need a window with good sun in a room with fairly low air temperature. Glass cuts down on sunlight just by itself, additional limitations from outdoor trees or buildings and just the low angle of the Winter sun means that the plants are not getting very much light in the best of circumstances. Since they do not have lots of sunlight, temperature must be fairly low (usually well below 70) so that the plants donÂt "stretch." Then it is just a matter of conscientious care and maybe potting up to larger containers if they start to get rootbound before outdoor planting.

Steve

Yes, the seed catalog fever has hit. I like Tomato Growers and Johnny's as most of the seed I buy is garden. I grow a lot of heirloom tomatoes but I still grow big beef and sungold because I like them. And I confess that Gurney's is a draw but mostly because of the cupon that can be used because I need innoculant, row covers and such and that $25 doubles my spending I can do. Not much snow but COLD!

I have to agree with you margaretmontana ... seed fever has struck again, LOL! I am sure I have ordered more seeds than I have room to grow the plants, assuming I am successful.

There are a couple things I will have to wait and buy as plants, unable to find seeds for, but I will have plenty of seeds to keep me busy until spring arrives : )

There is a lot of satisfaction that comes from being able to grow a plant from seed, plus it makes my wallet happy.

Every year, I go through at least one eraser on the end of my mechanical pencil writing down and erasing items I desperately want, then erase half of them and settle on the reasonable and doable. :)

Fun to read what everyone is looking at.

cnetter, that Harrison's Yellow sure looks like a bush in a yard near me that is abandoned and overgrown. It gets absolutely no attention where it is. I might go snip some. Would that work to propagate?

Harrison's Yellow is a hard one to propagate via cuttings, but it suckers like the dickens and you can dig up a sucker. But the other two I put links to are better behaved, very easy to propagate via cuttings, repeat bloom and smell good.

I got my Flynn daylily catalog and am trying very hard not to look at it. I already have to make more garden space for the daylilies I have (plus seedings to come this spring). But I can highly recommend Flynn's. I think most of my daylilies came from them.

Thank you, cnetter. It does bloom only once early on, but it smells wonderful. I'll ask the property owner, but I know he won't mind. I'll keep those others in mind if I finally make the jump to plant one in the front.

Guess cold stratification won't be much of a problem for other kinds of seeds this year. :) Maybe those Indian paintbrush seeds out in the grama will sprout this spring, then again, maybe not.

Stay warm and happy with your catalogs, everyone.

One of the fun things to do in early June is drive around the county and see the old, abandoned homestead houses that are covered with these roses. There is one about a mile up the road that has the yellow one, it covers half the old house. There is a red variety around as well. We had that one at our place when we moved in. This rose is not something that needs any sort of pampering, like watering. If you do, watch out, it will take over. We ended up digging the thing up with a back hoe and hauling it away with a dump truck, and building a greenhouse / garage where it once stood. Five years later, I still find suckers coming up.

There is one place I go fishing that had a long-ago farm house, now torn down. All you can find now are old rusted cans and busted glass. The red rose is still there, and spreading.

Sorry it took me so long to post. It's hard to think about gardening when it's buried under 2+ feet of snow. I have "kitchens" on my mind as we are getting ready to gut our original 1970's kitchen. One of my wish list priorities is a kitchen scrap compost bin built in to a cabinet.

Thanks for all the advice on seed starting and low water roses everyone. I've earmarked this page to refer back to.

I guess I should get busy and order the seeds we'd like to plant. I have a gift certificate my mom bought me a while ago for Shepherd's (I think) so I'll start there.

When will everyone start the whole indoor seed process? I like Skybird's recommendation for the pelleted seeds and will look for those.

I saw a little dirt peeking out of the snow today as it was in the 50's which had melted snow in some spots but most of our property is under layers of ice.

Charlene

Charlene, someone on the seed growing forum suggested I try winter sowing my seeds, since I don't have a green house, cold frame or grow lights, etc. If you are interested, check out the winter sowing forum. Lots of great info there. I am going to give it a try this year and see if it works. The ones that can't be winter sowed, I plan to start about 4 weeks before our last frost date, which I need to find out exactly when that is supposed to be.

Do you really still have 2 feet of snow on the ground? We just have a few patches left, and with temperatures getting near 50 this week, it will probably be gone soon.

Highalt-

Thanks for the tip about winter sowing. I'll definitely check that out. We have an unfinished basement that has lots of unused space and I think I may invest in a few lights and heating pad to try my hand at babying some seeds.

Our property is still covered in a pretty deep blanket of snow. My husband said two feet was exaggerating a little. We probably have about 1 1/2 feet of snow and more in snow drift areas but it is melting since the weather's been so warm. We live on top of a mesa that seems to "catch" a lot of snow but we also get the nice sun warmth because of it too.

We went for a hike yesterday in North Castle Rock on a trail and I wore snow hiking boots but not snowshoes and I sure could have used them. Some parts of the trail were packed down by snowshoers but other areas I sunk down to the middle of my shin with every step. It was a good workout and fun because it was so warm and sunny.

Keep us apprised of your seed starting endeavours :)

Charlene

Something has caught my eye recently - Geranium 'Sweet Heidy'. I think it's in the Wayside catalog, but I also found it in a catalog I prefer, along with another tempting geranium called "Little Monster". It's suppose to bloom all summer, which most of my hardy geraniums don't do.
I'm also tempted to get "Violet Satin" Rose of Sharon since "Blue Satin" has done so well.
Now I need to think where I can put them.

Charlene asks, "When will everyone start the whole indoor seed process?"

We will start with snapdragons and peppers about the 25th of this (!!?) month. Asian greens (for later transplant into the hoop house), broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, then eggplant and tomatoes during the 1st and 2nd week of March. Along with - China asters, statice, celosia, calendulas, and basil . . . later zinnias and melons.

The March madness of cookie boxes of potting soil and seeds stacked high in the warmth above the refrigerator. This big south window here at my elbow will soon be filled with tiny seedlings waiting for me to fire up the greenhouse so that they can have a "room of their own."

And by this time next month, I may be ready to begin the 1st cautious steps of garden cultivation.

Steve

On propagating Harison's Yellow - I actually find it very easy to propogate HY from softwood cuttings during the summer (new growth). Get about 6-8" new growth, strip off all but the top couple of leaf nodes, dip cutting in rooting hormone, place cuttings en masse in a LARGE pot of 1/2 and 1/2 seedstarting mix/perlite. Place pot outside in a spot that is always shaded (under a tree, north side of house, etc), and water at least daily. Do NOT cover the pot with plastic or anything - just keep it watered.

I usually have 12-18 cuttings of one variety in each large pot. As soon as good topgrowth starts (6-8 weeks or so), carefully remove individual rooted cuttings and place them in their own 1 gal pot.

Starting roses from softwood cuttings outside in a big pot guarantees almost 100% success for me - trying to root them the "proper" way in a plastic bag absolutely does not work for me - I end up with mushy brown cuttings that died.

High Country Roses is a great rose nursery! I already have my order placed for this year.
Nancy

Wayside, High Country Gardens, Gardeners Supply, Gurnys, and probably others I threw away.

I am a flower gardener without a place for a vegetable garden, so I have been eyeing those upside-down tomato planters. I also want to try planting garlic this year.

I ordered some things from Wayside, and I lost several of them before they even arrived. High Country Gardens is the best place to order plants for our climate and the plants arrive in beautiful condition.

Like others, I tend to buy about 70% of my flower plants locally.