Do you mean just for winter (say Jan - Mar) 2014? I don't think anybody outside of Hawaii, San Diego or Miami is doing too much outside container gardening right now. Maybe some annuals or hardy herbs. Now is the time in the west to get roses planted and pruned for the big spring push.

Those in the super cold polar vortex regions might be buying up indoor houseplants or succulents to boost their spirits and feed their green thumb addictions. :)

I am not looking for anything in particular that I might have difficulties finding. I have all my containers, container mix, fertilizer .. almost anything that I need or can get them locally. I personally, am not a mail order person. I like to see what I am buying.

January through March is bare root season. All of us fruit tree growers are all geeked up! But bare root is not container. Any that don't sell will put in containers and sold later in the season. I never buy anything locally myself, well very little, 99% is via mail order. And that's with any plant, container or otherwise. I actually cannot remember the last time I bought a plant locally? The selection is slime to none compared to online, and I go to 5 or 6 private nurseries all the time for products. I don't like buying products mail order. Some you have to. The main thing that distracts me is the high prices for plants at private nurseries. I can get fabulous fruit trees online for $8.50. Rare and hard to find trees too. Fruit Tree Farm carries 70 cultivars of peaches. Of course some are as high as $35.00 at some nurseries. Most are about $25.00 right now. I could match those prices at the big box stores, if I like the 3 cultivars they carry. I'm hooked on mail order, been doing it for decades now.

I also have been seed shopping in all the seed catalogs that came in. Great fun just browsing through them. For example Totally tomatoes has almost 70 pages of tomato varieties to choose from. Although I tend to buy from smaller sellers. I grow a couple hybrids, but mostly heirloom tomatoes.
So much info in the catalogs and online. Here's an example
I'm growing Aunt Lou's Underground Railroad Ky Heirloom Tomato. Here's a description:
It is rare to find such an historically significant vegetable treasure with this kind of provenence. A black man from Kentucky, traveling through the Underground Railroad, arrived in Ripley, Ohio, with the seeds of this tomato variety. Ripley, Ohio, where many slaves crossed the river to freedom, is home to Rankin House, a well known stop on the Underground Railroad and now a museum. The black man later shared seeds with a woman named Lou, who later shared seeds with her great nephew Francis Parker, who lives in Sardinia, Ohio. Sixty years later Francis shared seeds with Wilfred Ellis, owner of Ellis' Feed Mill. Wilfred shared them with Susan Barber, who shared them with Kentucky tomato guru Gary Millwood and me. Susan said that Wilfred is now 79 years old, and Francis several years older than he.

This tomato is a 4- 12 ounce, round, dark pink, canner or cooking tomato, juicy and seedy with thin skin and an acidic flavor, some having green shoulders. Sparse regular leaf foliage. The seeds are irregular in size and shape. This is not a "New and Improved" variety but it has performed better each year over the last several growing seasons I've had it. In 2011 it grew well and produced well even in standing water through the spring.

I make my own tomato sauce, so this will be added to the mix. Most sauce tomatoes don't taste good fresh, but great cooked. I grow some hybrid cherries for fresh eating, salads and such. I mostly grow tomate seeds direct from Italy for sauce. One of the best and very bad tasting fresh is
Costoluto Genovese -
Maturity midseason
Growth habit indet.
Leaf type regular
Fruit color red
Fruit shape irregular, ribbed, beefsteak
Fruit size medium
Fruit type slicer
Variety type open-pollinated, heirloom
Country Italy

This post was edited by Drew51 on Wed, Jan 29, 14 at 17:07