Back in the pre-high-tech days, this was the time of year garden writers began struggling for something to write. Here in the South, the struggle period only lasted for a couple of months because come February, gardeners were pumped and ready to start anew. But coming up with horticultural advice for the dead of winter was not easy and the same old stuff got repeated year after year.

We gardeners were annually reminded to pull up leftover tomato and annual flower plants to cut down on next year’s diseases. And we needed to clean and store tools, winterize mowers and tillers, and generally tidy up.

My favorite mundane, repetitious off-season recommendation was to look through seed catalogs. Understand now, the term “seed catalog” meant and still means mail-order catalogs that offer seeds, bulbs, houseplants, fruit trees or yard trees and shrubs as well as artificial owls to scare birds away. Oh, and some offer bird feeders. Go figure.

Thirty years ago, I laughed at advice to curl up on the couch with a stack of seed catalogs to pass away a cold wet afternoon. Nowadays, I find catalogs more interesting.

The pictures in seed catalogs always show perfect blooms, leaves, pods and fruit. There is nary a spot, blotch or rot on the plants. I can’t prove it, but I assume there are two explanations for picture-perfect gardening.

First, again assuming, the ugly is plucked off before taking the picture. And surely there is some trick photography such as airbrushing and tinting. And that’s okay, I reckon. I’m aware most delicious-looking cuisine pictured in slick food magazines gets help from professional food photography. Tomatoes on the vine deserve as much marketing expertise as those on the fine china.

I’m like a lot of people in that I look forward to many seed catalogs every year and then buy most everything at local retail garden centers. My mail-order buying over the years has been limited to finding the particular varieties I wanted. Back when fruit trees were hobby No. 1, I ordered peach trees from a Tennessee nursery because it offered every variety recommended by Mississippi State. Now that certain kinds and varieties of roses have become my thing, I get most of them from a Tyler, Texas, rose nursery. It is not a matter of price; rather it is finding the varieties I want.

Speaking of price, and since I haven’t provided any advice thus far, here’s some. Make sure to get your total cost, including shipping and handling, before completing the purchase on each separate order. I once ordered a slew of rose plants for fall shipment. One variety was not available until spring. Fine. Send the others and put me down for the one to be shipped later all alone. My Nacogdoches rose arrived solo in February at only $9 for the rose plus a small handling fee, but with a UPS tab of 16 bucks. I had my first and only $25 rose plant.

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Terry Rector writes for the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District, 601-636-7679 ext. 3.