The catalogue, now owned by White Flower Farm in Connecticut, continues to feature unusual Asian and European varieties and a wide range of American varieties noted for their abundance of flavor. Shepherd has since started a new enterprise, Renee's Garden, with its own catalogue of gourmet vegetables, most of them exclusive. No local retail shop carried a mesclun mix back then. Today, Cook's Garden Seeds offers a dozen different mesclun mixes to please a range of palates and respond to different climatic conditions. Even beyond the obvious benefits of gaining access to a vast larder of varieties, garden catalogues are great sources of gardening facts and strategies.
Some catalogues profoundly challenge the garden with a new ideology.
With such remarkable varieties as Juneberry and Paw Paw, Edible Landscaping takes the traditional concept of an orchard to a new level. Seed companies point out their Web sites have room for more information than their printed catalogues, but I prefer the latter. You don't have to wait for a catalogue to boot up, or worry about getting mud on it out in the garden. And in my experience, virtual catalogues are thinner than the old-fashioned versions. Here are some other catalogues that stretched my imagination and knowledge or in which I found something very special or unique.