The Cook's Garden Catalog uses woodcut prints by Mary Azarian. Her hand-painted prints and art books are also sold in their seed catalog. Another, Shepard's Garden Seeds is also filled with beautiful water-colors of almost every plant of which they sell seeds. But the real reason for buying seeds through catalogs is by far and away, the selection. Every color, shape, pattern, and flavor is available in more varieties than you ever dreamed of.
Some catalogs specialize in one type of plant.
These let you get a good combination of salad greens without having to buy each individual seed packet. Totally Tomatoes has over 250 varieties of tomatoes to choose from, and If it's beans you're looking for Vermont Bean Seed Company has more varieties than you ever imagined existed. Okay, so I'm a fanatic. Perhaps you are too if you're still reading. But the seed companies go to a lot of much-appreciated trouble to appeal to people like us.