Gardening catalogs are what gets gardeners through long winters. Every gardener knows the familiar withdrawal symptoms gardeners get when the first frost of fall hits. For gardeners, who love to putter around outdoors, fall and winter mean long months spent inside, while fallen leaves, snow, and mud cover the once-beautiful landscape.

Along come the holidays: first Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and gardeners have changing leaf colors and forecasts of snow to take their minds off the bulbs and tubers lying dormant under the soil. Then, miraculously, the letter carrier delivers the first gardening catalogs of the season, and, even though winter has just arrived, gardeners know that spring is coming soon.

The Burpee Gardening Catalog

Burpee is the granddaddy of gardening catalogs. The Burpee gardening catalog was created in the late 1800s when company founder W. Atlee Burpee added vegetable seeds to the livestock almanac he had been publishing for years. Atlee Burpee had a passion for innovating and improving livestock and nursery stock through breeding, and early Burpee gardening catalogs included a new cabbage called Surehead, an improved cabbage, Long Orange, an improved carrot, and new radishes and green beans.

The modern Burpee gardening catalog offers an amazing array of vegetables, annual and perennial flowers, herbs, bulbs, seed starting equipment, and gardening supplies. During the off season, the Burpee gardening catalog offers wreaths and greens and gifts for gardeners.

The Smith & Hawken Catalog

The Smith & Hawken catalog occupies the opposite end of the spectrum of gardening catalogs. This gardening catalog has been around since 1979. It is loaded with high-end garden furniture, accessories, and gifts. Some of the plants Smith & Hawken sells are miniature cypress trees in planters, priced from $29 to $39; a variety of bulbs for indoor forcing over the winter; and all kinds of orchids to grow indoors.

Smith & Hawken sells dozens of gifts that any gardener would love, like tool caddies, gardening clogs, pruners, and gloves. The Smith & Hawken gardening catalog also includes several interesting weather-monitoring gadgets, which are becoming increasingly popular with all the interest in climate change. Smith & Hawken even sells firepits and outdoor games, like croquet and bocce ball.

Specialty Catalogs

Specialty gardening catalogs are no-nonsense publications from companies that do just one thing, and do it well. Among specialty gardening catalogs are books dedicated to water gardens, rock gardens, tulip gardens, greenhouse gardening, indoor gardening, and other niche areas.