The mailbox provides a much-needed splash of color during these dull, gray days of winter - the gardening catalogs are arriving.
From the abundant vegetables on the cover of John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds to the "Incrediball" hydrangea on the cover of Wayside Gardens' spring catalog, there is plenty to inspire the cooped-up gardener.
But with the catalogs come questions: What to choose for the 2009 garden? What will be the hot new must-haves? Where are the sure-fire successes? What are the breakthrough varieties?
"I think we will all be going back in time," said Tait Saderholm, a sales representative for Homestead Growers in Davidsonville.
"We want the hydrangeas like Grandma had. We want the comfort of herbs and vegetables that we are familiar with. We see this every time the economy takes a turn."
Even the names of new varieties sound like comfort food.
"I love the names, 'Mac 'n' Cheese' and 'Tomato Soup,' " said Carrie Engel, retail manager at Valley View Farms in Cockeysville, referring to two new scrumptious echinacea. "Maybe it's because I'm on another New Year-inspired diet."
Breeders and garden-center managers expect this food theme to take off, predicting that the sale of vegetable seeds and plants might equal or - as they have in Europe - exceed the sale of flowering plants this year.
"We are seeing lots of interest in edible plants crossing over into the ornamental garden," said Engel, "like lettuces being used as a border plant."
Saderholm says generally the same thing. "Even if it is in a window box, people are going to be growing heirlooms and herbs."
The doleful economy is reflected in the continued popularity of native plants and those with considerable drought tolerance, such as the award-winning new gaillardia, "Tizzy," and the super petunia, "Vista Silverberry." Gardeners aren't in any mood to risk their gardening dollars, and these plants can also make you feel righteous.
But if the garden can be comforting, it apparently can also be sexy. Dan Heim of Terra Nova Nurseries, a breeding and a wholesaling business in Canby, Ore., talks lovingly of a new tropical begonia, "Curly Fireflush," with its velvety leaves fringed with red hairs and its white blossoms.
"It is so seductive. If a plant can be sexy, this is a sexy plant," he said.
Scott Kunst, owner of Old House Gardens in Ann Arbor, Mich., which sells heirloom plants, speaks the same way about his dark, ruffly dahlia "Prince Noir."
