Before long, the seed catalogs will start to roll in, a virtual feast for imagining the garden pleasures to come. Poring over them is clearly something people have relished doing for a good long while.

What a treat to stumble upon the various blogs of Barbara Wells Sarudy, including one on Early American Gardens. As part of that blog, she regularly posts images of historic American seed and plant catalogs from the Smithsonian libraries.

They’re lovely, and sometimes quite amusing. Here’s the link.

And here’s a sampling: