When long winters cause gardeners to stay indoors, gardening catalogs can help them to endure the withdrawal symptoms so many gardeners experience when they are stuck inside and away from the garden work that they so enjoy. Fall and winter can be trying time for people who love to garden.

Thanksgiving and Christmas often herald the end of the gardening season. Gardeners are forced to watch powerlessly as the leaves change colors, fall from their trees, and get covered with clean, white snow. It can be quite a happy time when a gardening catalog arrives in the dead of winter. Gardeners are suddenly reminded that spring will come soon enough.

Burpee Gardening Catalog

W. Atlee Burpee originated the now famous Burpee Gardening Catalog towards the end of the 1800’s. The catalog came about when his livestock almanac began to feature vegetable seeds. Mr. Burpee’s passion was to try to constantly improve nursery and livestock stock by means of breeding. Some of the first Burpee gardening catalogs thus featured the Long Orange improved carrot, the Surehead improved cabbage, and recently developed green beans and radishes.

Seed starting equipment, gardening supplies, herbs, bulbs, perennial flowers, annual flowers, and vegetables are all available in current Burpee gardening catalogs. Gifts designed for gardeners, wreaths, and greens are all available from the Burpee catalog during the fall and winter off season.

Smith & Hawken Catalog

Quite distinct from the Burpee Gardening Catalog, the Smith & Hawken Catalog was established in 1979. It features gifts for gardeners, gardening accessories, and high-end garden furniture. This catalog sells bulbs that can be grown indoors during the winter months, indoor orchids, and miniature cypress trees that come in their own planters at a cost of between $29 and $39.

Pruners, tool caddies, gloves and gardening clogs are just a few of the delightful gifts available for avid gardeners from the Smith & Hawken catalog. Firepits and outdoor croquet and bocce ball sets are also available from this catalog. Gadgets for monitoring changes in climate have also become popular items in the Smith & Hawken catalog.